We Knew This Pandemic Was Coming

This show originally aired on July 25, 2018.

Two years ago, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security ran an intricate simulation of a rapidly spreading pandemic with government leaders to talk about the difficult ethical questions that arise in the event of a pandemic and the same questions we are confronting today.

 

 

They learned what had to be done in the event of a real "Clade X". We haven't done it. 

The CDC said another pandemic was coming and that there was a good chance it President Trump would be confronted with it just as the two presidents before him. Yet, he cut funding for pandemic preparedness that has helped curb prior deadly global outbreaks and rid his administration of scientific advisors. 

Just under 150 million died globallyby the end of the Johns Hopkins simulation. It doesn't have to end this way or when the next pandemic hits. But the threat won't go away simply because we choose to ignore it. 

GUESTS:

• Ed Yong - Science writer for The Atlantic and is the author of I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life. (@edyong209)
• Eric Toner - Senior Scholar with the John Hopkins Center for Health Security and Senior Scientist for John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Environmental Health and Engineering. (@JHSPH_CHS)
• Laura Spinney - Science journalist and the author of most recently, Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed The World. (@lfspinney)

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