We Need to Prepare for the Next Pandemic

M any people have debated the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. Is it a natural virus that emerged from the live-animal market in Wuhan, or is it the product of a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, released either by accident or on purpose? No one outside the Chinese leadership knows for sure. But the one thing that everyone seems to agree about is that it could have been made in that lab.

Let that sink in for a minute: If SARS-CoV-2 could have been made in that lab, the next deadly virus could be made in a similar facility, which is to say in the kind of facility a well-heeled terrorist group could easily build or gain access to. Such groups must surely be taking note of the havoc that has been caused by the pandemic. We need to be prepared for the possibility that they take it upon themselves to make the next deadly virus and unleash it on the world.

The response of the authorities to the COVID-19 pandemic revealed a number of weaknesses that need to be corrected before the next one — whether caused by terrorists, a nation state, or nature — hits.

For one thing, massive quantities of vital personal protective gear need to be stockpiled well in advance. N-95 masks, ventilators, and other basic items critical to combating any pandemic were in shockingly short supply when COVID first hit. Dr. Anthony Fauci even felt the need, at one point early in the pandemic, to dissuade Americans from using masks in order to preserve the limited number available for medical professionals.

Rapid testing done by millions of employers, rather than limited testing conducted at official testing sites, can shut down any pandemic by allowing carriers to be identified and isolated before they can transmit a disease. The FDA has blocked such testing during the COVID pandemic, at a tremendous cost in lives lost. This control-driven mentality of denying citizens the means to save themselves from infection needs to be rejected. Instead, the authorities should stockpile testing gear, including the slow-to-produce machines that incubate the samples for the tests — so it can be issued for public use by the millions in case of necessity.

The scientific community responded brilliantly at the outset of the COVID pandemic, sequencing the virus and devising vaccines within the first few weeks of the outbreak. But the FDA managed to snatch catastrophe from the jaws of victory by insisting that vaccines be subjected to six months of safety tests and then waiting another six months to accumulate statistical proof that unvaccinated control groups were getting sick and dying at faster rates than vaccinated test groups. There is a case to be made for safety testing, which can be done quickly — allergic reactions to vaccines will show up within weeks. But it is murderous absurdity to block use of a vaccine during a pandemic in order to obtain better statistics on its effectiveness. This practice must be ended now and never allowed to happen again.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are not any safer or more effective today than they were last July, when FDA safety testing was completed. The Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines won’t be any safer or more effective weeks or months from now, after several hundred thousand more deaths, when the FDA finally authorizes their use. The only effect of the FDA’s delay has been to cost countless Americans their lives. The fact that the FDA was just following the standard regulatory procedures is not an excuse; it is proof that the standard regulatory procedures need to change, and now, both so the current crisis can be adequately dealt with and establish how the next one will be dealt with ahead of time.

As for production of vaccines, the types of chemicals needed for their manufacture should be stockpiled well in advance, to prevent precisely the kinds of supply-chain problems we’re facing now. And as for the issue of distribution, a simple system needs to be set up so that anyone arriving at a vaccination center with a common ID such as a driver’s license, Social Security card, Medicare card, or passport can get vaccinated, without having to negotiate absurd websites requiring them to scan QR codes or any of the other nonsense that some state and local authorities have dreamed up in order to make the process more complicated.

In short, we need a well-conceived, well-stocked civil-defense system. But in order for such a system to work, laws need to be changed to disempower the FDA. Putting the FDA in charge of defense against bioterrorism is like putting the EPA in charge of defense against air raids. Just imagine:

Fighter Pilot: Hot Dog to base. Enemy bombers approaching New York. Request permission to engage.

Base: Hold your horses there, Hot Dog. We need EPA clearance first. We’ll start work on the filings for the environmental-impact statement as soon as possible.

You can have all the fighter planes in world, but they won’t do you a bit of good if that is how the command-and-control process of your air-defense system operates. We have scientists who can develop new vaccines within days. But they won’t be able to save us if they are left under the control of a bureaucracy that takes a year to approve their cures.

For civil defense to work against bioterrorism, we need a command-and-control system that can move much faster than the FDA and understands that it must. We can’t leave ourselves at the mercy of bureaucrats who enjoy playing favorites with drug approval in order to determine the outcome of business competitions, and are obsessed with preserving that prerogative even at severe cost to public health.

The FDA’s defenders say that in the case of COVID, the agency moved much faster than it usually does, approving vaccines in just one year. But 400,000 Americans died in the interim. If that’s the result of the FDA’s performing much better than usual, all the more reason to take the agency out of the pandemic-defense loop.

The bottom line is this: The pandemic has demonstrated the spectacular potential of bioterrorism to inflict harm on civilized societies, and we must take steps to protect against the serious possibility that those interested in destroying us will try to harness that potential. We need to have the materials for our defense prepared in abundance, and we need a command-and-control structure capable of wielding them swiftly and effectively. We don’t have either now — and unless we have both by the time the next pandemic hits, the cost to our nation will be very steep indeed.