Pandemic preparedness in the near term is at risk of ending not with a bang, but with a whimper.
America’s attention to the risks of natural and man-made highly infectious diseases is waning, and continues to do so, the further the country moves away from the recent pandemic. But it is Washington’s ebbing attention that is far more concerning, with the business of preparedness remaining in progress and unfinished as both the White House and Congress instead shift their focus to the November elections.
The coming months are critical to national preparedness; it is vital that they are not wasted, and that progress be made on preparing the country for the next disease.
That business in Washington will crawl to a halt is not surprising. Every four years national attention shifts to the presidential and accompanying congressional elections. This means, in practice, little gets done from the early summer through November, and depending on the election cycle and its outcome, little more could be accomplished through the beginning of the next administration or a second presidential term.
This is a missed opportunity. In effect, it puts the brakes on any real preparedness planning as the current administration holds its breath waiting on November’s outcome.
Regardless of whether President Biden retains the White House or there is a transition of government, it is a safe bet that neither administration will have pandemic preparedness at the top of their legislative agendas.
Of course, a newly reelected Biden administration will be in a slightly more advantageous position to pursue action on pandemic preparedness simply by virtue of already being in office and having an existing administration. Even still, it is likely that his second term will be defined by priorities other than the business of pandemic preparedness.
If former President Trump is elected to a second term, his immediate priorities on entering office will be building out his administration and acting on his legislative agenda. Given that it has rarely, if ever, been a top priority for an incoming administration, it is a safe assumption that pandemic preparedness will not eclipse the panoply of pressing priorities he will inherit and on which he will seek to act.
While the executive-level attention of the respective White Houses may be elsewhere, the bureaucracies they oversee could well advance the needs of preparedness. Here, work remains ongoing as evidenced by two recent reports: in May, the White House published its “National Biodefense Strategy and Implementation Plan” and just one month before the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense released its “National Blueprint for Biodefense.”
Neither report received much, if any, attention from anyone outside of the preparedness community (and even within it was scant), but they are illustrative of the intellectual and policy activity that remains ongoing in the background.
Politics and elections aside, progress on the critical work of preparedness must continue. Washington is still learning the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and must change the way in which it thinks about preparedness from a nice-to-have to a must-have.
The ebb and flow of Congress’s legislative activity and increasingly common budget brinksmanship prevents needed stability for government agencies and the private sector alike. For the latter, this inconsistency limits the willingness of companies to make necessary investments to support expanded production when another pandemic — natural or manmade — happens.
The replenishment of the Strategic National Stockpile remains ongoing, albeit at too slow a pace. It too needs greater consistency in terms of budgeting and a considered modernization effort to ensure that more of what is needed is stocked, in a timely manner, and existing stocks are sufficiently rotated out and replenished.
The basics of pandemic preparedness are vital, but so too is preparation for what comes next. The emergence and maturation of artificial intelligence (AI) creates unparalleled opportunities (and risks) in the realm of pandemic preparedness.
Leveraging AI for disease surveillance and anticipation could well make preparedness and response faster and more effective, provided the legislative and regulatory frameworks are in place to leverage this tool. Equally, left, and right parameters are needed to ensure that AI is not misused for the development of novel diseases that could be introduced in a bioterror attack or otherwise, a concern about which many technologists and futurists are warning.
While there is little that can be done about election-related disruption to progress on pandemic preparedness, the broader ecosystem and community of experts from government and industry must ensure that preparedness remains in the public’s consciousness and on the national agenda.
It is not a matter of if, but when, the next pandemic occurs, and every day lost to distraction or disruption is one that the country can ill-afford.
Joshua C. Huminski is senior vice president for National Security & Intelligence Programs at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress and a George Mason University National Security Institute senior fellow. He can be found on X/Twitter @joshuachuminski.