The Pandemic That We Were Not Prepared For

Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic caught most nations off guard and racked havoc with massive mortality and morbidity, while also caused major economic damage and disruption of our life and work. At the same time, countries responded to this pandemic with wide-ranging variations in policies and attitudes and resulting in very different outcomes. This presentation will be focusing on analyzing the differences in country policy response and consequences. After a brief introduction of the nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the COVID-19 pandemic it causes, and how it spread from China to all over the world, I will review effective pandemic control policies that some nations have implemented with a high level of success and outcomes. Further, I will analyze key social-political factors that help us to explain the variations in national responses. Finally, we will look into the strategies of how we can control this global pandemic effectively, what the post-COVID-19 world may be lying ahead for us, and how we may prepare for it or reshape it.

Speaker
Chunhuei Chi, MPH, Sc.D.,
Professor, Global Health Program
Professor, Health System and Policy Program
Director, Center for Global Health
College of Public Health & Human Sciences