Preparing for the next one, the next global pandemic, is a critical part of health care policy. We’re now hearing all about Monkeypox a disease that has been around for over 50 years but previously was confined to areas of the world where monkeys live. Evidently a traveler brought this disease with him into the United States.
Like AIDS in its early days, the spread seems to be among men who have sexual contact with other men, but can spread by contact with others. It causes a painful rash and there are treatments and vaccines. But as the CDC notes in a recent release, there is much we don’t know about the disease.
Congress actually cut funding for preparedness planning for the next pandemic. We need national leadership so the next President doesn’t need to stand in front of candles commemorating the dead because we were blindsided by our lack of planning. Just as importantly, we need to restore our social trust in public health planners and workers.
Prayer for the Day
Barely beyond the fear created by the current pandemic, O God,
We now hear news of new illnesses, with names strange to our ears;
One response is to cut ourselves off from the world outside,
But in reality we know that cannot happen in our interconnected world.
Help us find the wisdom to reconstitute our public health services,
So we do not again become a Nation in mourning over lives lost.
In the name of the One who guides us in wisdom,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen
Thoughts for the Day
We have treatments and vaccines, but they haven’t been able to be mobilized in an effective way. Further, America’s test and trace failures at the beginning of COVID-19 are seemingly being repeated.
- Nikki Teran, geneticist, biosecurity fellow Institute for Progress
What reforms, if any, will the federal government make to its public-health agencies after their significant failures over the past 16 months? …Yet Congress has demonstrated little haste so far in determining what went wrong and how the country’s public-health institutions can prevent it from happening again.
- Robinson Meyer, reporter, The Atlantic
Is there any among you who, if your child asks for a fish will give a snake?
Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?
Luke 11: 11-12