WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, authored an op-ed in Foreign Policy about why the United States was virtually impotent from stopping COVID-19 from reaching our shores and what can be done better if and when the next pandemic strikes.

In the piece, Murphy lays out specific policy recommendations for the United States to increase preparedness for the next global pandemic, such as (1) restarting USAID’s PREDICT program to track early stage viruses and infectious diseases worldwide; (2) creating a Global Health Security Challenge Fund to build up long-term health infrastructure in fragile countries; (3) Supersize our global public health corps; (4) Invest and reform in the World Health Organization and work with international partners for vaccine research through the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation; and (5) re-establish the National Security Council’s Global Health Directorate. Murphy raised alarm bells about the administration’s unpreparedness for COVID-19 in early February.

“With a crisis of this size, scope and peril, it isn’t wise to try to anticipate the next threat before you’ve defeated the current one. The U.S. government’s priority—right now and in the near future—must be to take decisive action to halt the spread of the coronavirus, both in the United States and around the world, and to rescue the U.S. economy from potential catastrophe. But as government officials, we do not have the luxury of waiting long before we start the process of learning from what went wrong,” Murphy wrote.

Murphy continued: “What went wrong? The United States spends close to $1 trillion every year on national defense. The U.S. international defense footprint dwarfs that of every other nation. What’s the point of this largesse if a single virus can spread from a provincial city in China to the United States in a matter of weeks, taking down the entire economy in the process? Why did the coronavirus so quickly pierce our national defenses? How did we fail, and how do we do better next time?”

After offering several recommendations to boost preparedness, Murphy wrote: “After the terrorist attacks of 2001 killed thousands of innocent Americans and created a global financial panic, the U.S. government restructured itself, established enduring international coalitions, and massively scaled up its international footprint to prevent the next terrorist attack. Many Americans, including me, would take issue with some of the policy choices made in the aftermath of 9/11, but there is no question that U.S. leaders at the time understood the gravity of the moment and moved mountains to impose systemic change. That same level of focus and commitment is what Americans need now.”

Murphy concluded: “Unfortunately, the Trump administration has completely botched the response to COVID-19 so far. He denied the risk of the disease for weeks, failed to ramp up testing measures, and has dangerously suggested relaxing social distancing measures—and Americans are paying the price for it. At the moment, all our resources should be devoted to the immediate crisis, but we can’t waste time in learning lessons and beginning the conversation about how to rebuild the country’s pandemic defense system. The next virus is not going to wait for the U.S. government to get its act together.”

Read the full op-ed here.

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