{"id":28226,"date":"2017-11-23T07:59:51","date_gmt":"2017-11-23T12:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28226"},"modified":"2017-11-23T07:59:51","modified_gmt":"2017-11-23T12:59:51","slug":"when-the-next-pandemic-hits-will-we-be-prepared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28226","title":{"rendered":"When the Next Pandemic Hits, Will We Be Prepared?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When the Next Pandemic Hits, Will We Be Prepared?<\/a><\/h3>\n

The question isn\u2019t whether a pandemic will strike\u2014it\u2019s how it will play out.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Next<\/span>
Thought leaders gathered at the National Museum of Natural History to discuss the past, present and future of the flu.(Daniel Schwartz)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

What would it look like if the devastating Spanish flu crisis<\/a> of 1918 hit today? That was the question that public health experts and thought leaders came together to address at this week\u2019s \u201cThe Next Pandemic\u201d<\/a> symposium, organized in collaboration with Smithsonian Media, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of Natural History.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

On the one hand, today\u2019s public health landscape looks nothing like 1918\u2014thanks in part to the continued reverberations of that fateful year. The waves of influenza that claimed the lives of anywhere between 50 and 100 million people ushered in a new era of public health and epidemiology. Today we have a seasonal flu vaccine, as well as the capacity to develop new vaccines<\/a> within six months of identifying novel strains. We have international disease reporting and surveillance networks to ensure that a disaster on that scale never happens again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

On the other hand, all these tools could prove useless depending on what we find ourselves facing. Even a familiar culprit like influenza\u2014which morphs every year and still largely manages to outsmart our vaccines\u2014could easily overwhelm the world\u2019s current healthcare systems and resources. Nor is the pandemic threat limited to immediate dangers to public health. A crisis of that magnitude would test our infrastructure and community response, and threaten countries\u2019 economic and political security.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Next Pandemic Hits, Will We Be Prepared? The question isn\u2019t whether a pandemic will strike\u2014it\u2019s how it will play out. Thought leaders gathered at the National Museum of Natural History to discuss the past, present and future of the flu.(Daniel Schwartz) What would it look like if the devastating Spanish flu crisis of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[607,17136,17135],"class_list":["post-28226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-pandemic","tag-rachel-e-gross","tag-smithsonian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28227,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28226\/revisions\/28227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}