COVID-19 has taught US that foresight and tech are a winning combination

Abstract

WHEN THE SPANISH FLU PANDEMIC swept across the globe in 1918, it ravaged a population with essentially no technological countermeasures. There were no diagnostic tests, no mechanical ventilators, and no antiviral or widely available anti-inflammatory medications other than aspirin. The first inactivated-virus vaccines would not become available until 1936. An estimated 50 million people died. (1) Today, a best-case scenario predicts 1.3 million fatalities from COVID-19 in 2020, according to projections by Imperial College London, and rapidly declining numbers after that. That in a world with 7.8 billion people-more than four times as many as in 1918. Many factors have lessened mortality this time, including better implementation of social-distancing measures. But technology is also a primary bulwark. (2) Since January of this year, roughly US $50 billion has been spent in the United States alone to ramp up testing, diagnosis, modeling, treatment, vaccine creation, and other tech-based responses, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The massive efforts have energized medical, technical, and scientific establishments in a way that hardly anything else has in the past half century. And they will leave a legacy of protection that will far outlast COVID-19.