More than 40 natural scientists, social scientists, computer scientists, engineers, physicians and public health officials from 15 institutions hosted five workshops and undertook five pilot studies to tackle three grand challenges:
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Predicting novel pathogen threats.
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Forecasting and positively influencing individual and collective responses to pathogen threats.
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Integrating science into every stage of pandemic decision-making, including prevention, detection, containment and mitigation.
“We must overcome our collective failure of imagination. COVID-19 took us by surprise. We spent decades planning for a pandemic that would resemble the viruses we already knew. We didn’t plan for face masks, mass testing, stay-home orders, politicized decision-making, or devastating racial disparities. Looking forward, we need to prepare for a much broader range of threats.”
Lauren Ancel Meyers
14 Lessons for the Next Pandemic, New York Times, 19 March 2021
