Five years after COVID-19, Greater Boston health experts assess pandemic preparedness as better than 2020, but still complicated. Dr. Bisola Ojikutu emphasizes the unpreparedness and the crucial need for an enhanced public health infrastructure. Despite improvements in capacity, community outreach, and data-sharing, she noted the historical underinvestment in public health as a key concern. Dr. Paul Biddinger acknowledges the mixed state of current preparedness, citing invaluable lessons learned. Collaboration during the COVID era has led to effective testing and treatment strategies, yet further advancements are essential for future challenges.
"I think that one of the important things that we learned is that we weren't prepared for a pandemic, an emergency event of that magnitude, unfortunately," said Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, Boston's public health commissioner.
"I think that there has been, over time, if you just look across the country, just a low investment in public health," Ojikutu said. "And I think that that is one of the main points that came out of this, is that we truly need to build our capacity and our ability to be prepared if something similar happens in the future."
"From my perspective, I think if you look at where we are in our pandemic preparedness currently, it's really a mixed picture," he said. "We have learned an awful lot of lessons."
"On the one hand, leaders in medicine and public health fostered collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic, arranging for testing sites, expanding hospital capacity, and fast-tracking effective vaccines and treatments."
Collection
[
|
...
]