BY BORGE BRENDE & RYAN MORHARD
Last fall, 16 leaders from governments, businesses and international organizations gathered in New York to conduct a simulated response to a hypothetical global health emergency. We looked at the challenges that could arise in such a scenario, which was increasingly likely given the world has about 200 epidemic events per year. We could not know the exercise would become reality just months later — but the conclusion was sobering: If it did, the global community was woefully unprepared.
A few months later, the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in China. By the end of January, more than 500 people had been infected and Wuhan, the origin of the outbreak, had been placed under quarantine.
Now, COVID-19 has spread internationally and affected more than 90,000 people, leading to more than 3,000 deaths. The OECD expects it will also cause significant economic damage: Global economic growth could slow by 1.5 percent, putting the world in a technical recession.
We couldn’t have predicted this specific outbreak. But something similar was bound to happen and, if you had asked us during the exercise in New York if we were ready for a global health emergency, we would have said “no.”
The simulation and our previous work had shown there was a lot more to be done to enable public-private cooperation in the face of such a threat. But there is a silver lining: It’s not too late to apply the lessons we learned in the fall. What can we do to mobilize a better global response?
First, we must look beyond the immediate health impact of the COVID-19 virus and come up with a systemic response. Our research and analysis have shown global health threats pose a significant international risk and the costs of epidemics are rising.
Nothing is more important than protecting and saving lives. But we must also consider the economic and social consequences of outbreaks.
COVID-19 has illustrated again that outbreaks can affect supply chains, industries, companies, travel systems, workforces and more.
The economic fallout of the virus has been felt worldwide, and the overall socioeconomic impacts are still being realized. We have prioritized systems to respond to health threats, but we haven’t given nearly enough thought to managing the effects on people’s livelihoods. Now is the time to change that.
Consider how fire departments have evolved over time. Two hundred years ago, fire departments in the UK focused just on responding to the fires themselves. Until someone finally said: It’s not enough to just put the fire out, you must do so in a way that supports the people most affected and the impact on their community.
Similarly, we must respond to global health threats in a systematic way that addresses the related economic and social disruptions.
Second, we must act on the facts, not on fear. The simulation showed the importance of elevating facts and empowering people to make evidence-based decisions. As a global community, we know the “infodemic” spreads even faster than the virus itself. But we haven’t done enough to cultivate an environment for business leaders, health ministers, politicians or the general public to access the truth and act on it.
In a global health emergency, all of us are only as strong as our weakest link
Right now, fear is still winning the day, and “false news” spreads faster than official World Health Organization (WHO) and other authorities’ information. Many people are continuing to make the most risk-averse, and often unsubstantiated, decisions — hoarding face masks, closing borders or racially stigmatizing Asians, for example. It leads to a race to the bottom. We must instead make it easier for people to access reliable information and feel confident in making decisions about their organizations and themselves. The WHO set the tone with its daily press briefings and its accessible website with information for citizens, companies and governments. It has even opened a TikTok channel.
Media outlets such as Dagens Nyheter in Sweden, The Local in wider Europe, and the Seattle Times in the US are following its lead, opening their coverage for all and basing it on solid research, not online rumors. It’s a laudable response that deserves to be replicated elsewhere.
Third, we must engage decision-makers in the private sector. Governments mostly focus their communication directly to the general public. But the private sector and its leadership are a crucial piece of the puzzle too. First, they can help share information, as they employ well over half the workforce in many economies. Second, they can help limit the economic consequences if they are properly informed and kept abreast by the health and public authorities. –AN
