Pandemic Response: Challenges, Advances, and Lessons Learnt

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Background

SARS-CoV-2 has unleashed the pandemic of the century, inflicting over a million deaths in the United States and over six million deaths worldwide since it was first reported in December 2019. COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, overwhelmed healthcare systems, paralyzed the global economy, set back education, disrupted the supply chain, and traumatized every fiber of critical infrastructure in society. In developing countries, COVID-19 set back decades of progress in fighting hunger, poverty, illiteracy, and childhood health protection via vaccination.

Although substantial resources have been invested in pandemic preparedness and response, it is clear that the world was not prepared for COVID-19, as public health leaders ignored warnings and failed to convert their level of preparedness into timely actions for early disease containment and effective mitigation. Nonetheless, this devastating crisis triggered unparallel and critical scientific advances, including novel diagnostic testing and drug design, advances in clinical treatment, and rapid vaccine development.

As we continue to fight the virus variants, work to reduce the burden of illness, and curb transmission globally to end the pandemic, we must understand and investigate the challenges, advances, and lessons learned in order to better prepare and protect humanity against the next pandemic.

While countries have varied significantly in their available resources and application of public health measures to combat the spread of the virus, this pandemic clearly shows that a country’s wealth does not necessarily secure the health of its citizens. A successful pandemic response demands decisive leadership and “look ahead” system competence. The pandemic crisis calls for a reassessment that leads to innovation in public health disaster medicine. This presents a clear opportunity for building a resilient society and infrastructure by drawing from successful actions and lessons learned from every part of the world.

The number of infectious disease outbreaks has been accelerating, many of which have pandemic potential. These disease outbreaks constitute a major global risk and require coordinated and decisive actions across all countries. Public health must seize the moment as the COVID-19 pandemic offers a wealth of lessons for reassessment and innovation to build a better and sustained health security future. This research topic seeks original research on topics related to the challenges, scientific advances (clinical and basic science), and lessons learned during the COVID-19 crisis. Examples of such topics include:

- Optimizing constrained resources, e.g., redesigning ventilators for multiple-patient usage, decontaminating N95 masks, pooling for tests, etc.

- Novel drug and treatment discovery

- Rapid vaccine design

- Operations and systems redesign, e.g., contact tracing, mass screening and vaccination, adapting clinical facilities, alternative care delivery, and manufacturing bottlenecks

- Tradeoffs and impact of various public health policies and response actions in mitigating the pandemic

We expect authors from the following range (but not limited to):
1. Scientists and clinicians who succeeded in advancing ventilator usage by making it for multiple people to share one.

2. Scientists who have succeeded in decontaminating the N95 so that it can be used for 21 days instead of 1 day.

3. Hospital leaders who succeeded in adapting the clinical environment so that it can adapt to the maximum number of patients, being agile, and being able to protect their workers.

4. mRNA technology, how it overcomes the time hurdle to roll out at such rapid speed.

5. How local strike teams raced through the limited resources and time and managed to vaccinate as many people as possible.

Keywords: Pandemic response, diagnostics, treatment, vaccine design, clinical service, disaster medicine, emergency logistics, policies and decisions

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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