How Are We Preparing For the Next Pandemic?

Six years since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, here’s a snapshot of preparedness at a time of global health funding cuts, policy shifts and the continued spread of misinformation.

Medical workers wearing masks, gloves and protective gear stand next to a car holding a swab and a tube. — Medical workers test a patient for COVID-19 at a drive-thru testing facility in San Francisco, California on March 12, 2020.

Ambika Kandasamy

March 13, 2026

In March 2020, the World Health Organization’s director-general declared COVID-19 a pandemic, saying the agency was “deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.” Since the virus emerged six years ago, the disease has taken the lives of more than 7 million people, according to data tracked by KFF, a health research organization. COVID infections have left hundreds of millions of people with long COVID, a complex and chronic condition.

“We’re going to have more pandemics,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, noting that data shows that the chances of future pandemics and the frequency with which they could occur are increasing.

Scientists have long warned that pandemics are inevitable. Research in recent years has estimated the chance of a COVID-19-like pandemic as 28% within the next decade and 38% in our lifetimes.

Changes in Global Health Funding and Policies

In the United States, the second Trump administration has been reshaping the nation’s global health policies. In 2025, it released the “America First Global Health Strategy,” which included the stated goals of enabling early detection and containment of outbreaks. The nonpartisan Center for Global Development noted that the plan signaled “continued U.S. commitment to global health,” including preventing pandemics, but called broader cuts to U.S. global health programming “devastating news.”

In 2025, the administration dismantled USAID, the federal humanitarian agency that played a role in global outbreak prevention and response, after stating that large portions of USAID funding did not align with “core national interests.” In 2026, the U.S. announced its withdrawal from the WHO after almost 78 years of membership, which it said was in response to “the WHO’s failures during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

While headlines stating that, “we’re all doomed” as a result of these changes might grab attention, Rebecca Katz, professor and director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University, told FRONTLINE, “the reality is that it’s a lot more nuanced than that.”

Katz pointed out that different parts of the world are investing resources to prepare for pandemics in various ways.

The WHO described such measures in a recent statement, including launching a Pandemic Fund to support disease surveillance and training in 98 countries; strengthening networks to track pathogens that might lead to epidemics or pandemics; and setting up the Global Health Emergency Corps to address some of the gaps identified during the COVID-19 response.

In spite of those initiatives, the WHO also noted that it has seen what it calls a “shortsighted” funding shift from health to defense and national security, and emphasized that “pandemics are national security threats.”

Ongoing Misinformation Threats

Medical misinformation, which was rampant on social media and other platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic, has continued to be an issue. The recent IPPS report listed the erosion of public trust due to vaccine hesitancy and misinformation around the world as a major barrier to reinvestment in research and development.

Epidemiologist Nuzzo said this problem can’t be fixed without examining why people might be inclined to believe false information.

“There’s not an infrastructure to enable people to get advice from authoritative sources that they trust,” Nuzzo said. Around 74% of the world’s population used the internet in 2025, according to the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency that focuses on digital technologies. But Nuzzo pointed out that a lot of people can’t afford access to information behind paywalls. Researchers have looked into additional challenges such as censorship by governments and other authorities and the influence of social media algorithms on public health that technology companies continue to grapple with.

The Role of Community Engagement

In addition to COVID-19, this month marks another significant global health anniversary. In March 2014, Guinea notified the WHO about an Ebola outbreak. The virus rapidly spread to other countries across West Africa and beyond, and became the largest Ebola outbreak since the virus was discovered, killing more than 11,000 people.