Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus & Michael R. Bloomberg

Stopping the Next Pandemic Starts Now

The next global health crisis is coming, and the world needs to prepare.

Pharmacy technicians ready doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Denver.

Photographer: Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
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As the First World War wore on, a new scourge erupted: an influenza pandemic that left even more bodies in its wake than the conflict itself. But the 1918 pandemic was overshadowed by the war, and its lessons went unheeded.

One hundred years later, the world faces a similar test. When the Covid-19 pandemic eventually recedes, will we learn the lessons it is teaching us? Or once the emergency subsides and life returns to “normal,” will we carry on the same as before?