As the death count from COVID-19 has surpassed that of those killed by Al-Qaeda on 9/11, the commonly used analogy of a war against the virus is apt. The parallels are extensive, and raises the question: Will we make the sweeping changes to our public health system that we made to our national security enterprise following 9/11? Will we recognize that this existential threat may return and we need to be prepared?
In the years before 9/11, Al-Qaeda had attacked U.S. assets globally, the bombing of the U.S.S Cole in Yemen, the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. Lack of coordination amongst intelligence agencies and ignoring the expanse of ungoverned territories in Afghanistan made for an ineffective U.S. intelligence enterprise that underestimated the threat of Al Qaeda until they hit the homeland.
Similarly, the threat of a viral pandemic has shadowed U.S. interests globally over the last few years. SARS, Ebola and MERS have been circling U.S. interests in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, but the U.S. failed to see the pandemic reaching our shores and was woefully unprepared from supply chains, to national stockpiles, to preparing a population for self-isolation amid the arrival of COVID-19.
Similar to the early days of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and later in Iraq, the U.S. was unprepared to fight the enemy. Soldiers and Marines were left to up-armor their own Humvees and personal protective equipment was sparse and often improvised in the field, not unlike front line health care personnel today who are scrambling for masks and gowns.
Just as we rely on the men and women of the U.S. military in wartime, the entire population of America is now depending on a small portion of the population to take the risk for the rest of U.S. The grocery store workers who are risking infection to assure we have access to food during this crisis. The health care workers who are risking their lives and the safety of their families and having to be separated from their families for long periods of time.
Over the years of war, the U.S. mobilized industry, generations of war fighters and innovators to protect the U.S. from terrorism. Bipartisan efforts resulted in the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Patriot Act and the expansion of war powers.
Billions of dollars were spent on innovations that saved lives, including drone technology, new materials for body armor and advance modeling to predict terrorist behavior. Will the U.S. commit to the same strengthening of institutions and innovation to protect Americans from future pandemics?
We have already seen innovation and rapid action from industry and government, as evidenced by the initiation of a vaccine safety trial in record time at Kaiser Permanente, funded by the National Institutes of Health. Companies, including Utah-based industry leader BioFire, have adapted existing technology to provide tests for COVID-19. Other Utah-based companies like Recursion Pharmaceuticals are using novel approaches to rapidly screen compounds for potential therapeutics and IDbyDNA which provides a genome level data to support detection and surveillance of the virus.
However, will we as a nation sustain this “all hands” response when the acute threat has receded? Will we, as a nation, rethink our dependence on an inexpensive foreign supply chain for medical supplies? Will we assure public health institutions are healthy in personnel and resources? Will we foster innovation in areas of medicine that are not lucrative but crucial to the health of Americans, such as vaccines? Will we implement global pathogen surveillance programs? Will we learn the lessons of COVID 19 and prevent future war widows?
Ivy Estabrooke
Ivy Estabrooke is the executive director of corporate affairs at IDbyDNA, a venture-backed metagenomics company. She is a neuroscientist by training and has spent her career at the nexus of public policy, innovation and national security.
