COVID-19 pandemic 3 years in: We are NOT ready for the next pandemic!

Abstract

On December 29, 2019, four workers from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, in Wuhan, China were admitted to hospital with pneumonia. By January 7, 2020, the National Institute of Communicable Disease Control and Prevention (Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention) had announced that they had isolated a novel coronavirus (CoV) from patients in Wuhan. Little did the world know that Wuhan would become ground zero for what would become one of the most significant health crises to affect the globe in recent memory. On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Public Health Emergency (PHE) of International Concern. The first United States (US) case of the CoV occurred in Washington State on January 21, 2020. In late January 2020, the US declared a PHE due to the coronavirus outbreak. The announcement came days after the WHO declared a Global Health Emergency as more than 9,800 cases of the virus and more than 200 deaths had been confirmed worldwide.3 On March 11, 2020, the WHO announced to the world that SARSCoV- 2 (COVID-19) was a global pandemic.