[BostonCard]

To break it down, it essentially will ask how can we be more like New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and less like Brazil and Mexico for the NEXT global pandemic?

Goodness I hope they don't approach it that way. While I think it will be useful to look at the approaches used in areas that were relatively successful in containing the epidemic, it is abundantly clear IMHO that the approaches used in these nations would be largely ineffective in the USA. New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan are islands that are relatively easily isolated from outside infections. They also have much smaller populations than the USA. Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea are relatively homogeneous culturally so obtaining compliance is much easier than in the USA. Thailand, Vietnam, and South Korea also have governments that have frequently used major force to control the population.

I believe that we need to first look very hard at what will work here in the USA to prevent us from getting in a situation where we have community spread in many places. We have avoided previous pandemics by doing this, but in fact we were aided by the type of disease and some very good luck. We need to greatly beef up our capability to do this. This will include plans to safely repatriate US travelers when epidemics start in other nations. It may involve considerable inconvenience to travelers, but we are going to need the capability. We have too many people and too many points of entry to just ignore the issue. Once it gets going inside the USA, controlling it isn't ever going to be easy.

We also need to improve our local health departments ability to respond to outbreaks and control them early. IMHO the public needs to be educated to the idea that public health enforcement exists and will be used! We have the legal mechanisms in place because we previously used them to deal with localized epidemics. Our current politicians seem to believe that the population will simply revolt if they try to enforce isolation/quarantine. That has to change. The public has to know that these steps will be taken and will be enforced. In all the nations you cited as better examples (except Japan), that is the case. The local tracking and tracing capability needs to be maintained adequately to handle an outbreak, but that is pointless if there is no enforcement. We are experiencing that right now and have been for months.

The third arm of the changes we need was outlined by Tony Fauci in his conversation with the Dean of the medical school. We need to develop the capability to create antivirals "on demand" to attack things like COVID-19 early on. The "warp speed" effort to develop a vaccine is great, but this type of effort will always take many months because you have to vaccinate a large percentage of the population to gain an effect. In the meantime, you can't have people dying in large numbers. The only way to avoid lockdowns is to treat the disease successfully. We are getting there with COVID-19. 
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousd...definition

However, right now things like this take too long. We need more "generic" methodologies that deliver an effective treatment in weeks or at most two months. Is this easy? No. Can it be done? Probably. We are on the edge of being able to do it. Make it a priority and it will happen. This is the type of  approach that the public will like, because they don't have to do anything but fund it. No loss of freedoms or annoying isolation requirements. Money will be made as well. What's not to like? As a side benefit, we may actually cure the common cold.

Being an island is not a protection from COVID in the days of airplanes.  The United States did not get COVID-19 because of people poring over the border from Mexico or Canada; we got it from people with the disease flying arriving at airports.  And Taiwan, New Zealand, Japan, etc. all had planes bringing people with COVID-19 in.  The pandemic was out of control because we mismanaged it; the pandemic was kept under control at other countries because they managed it better.

BC

[BostonCard]

To break it down, it essentially will ask how can we be more like New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and less like Brazil and Mexico for the NEXT global pandemic?

Goodness I hope they don't approach it that way. While I think it will be useful to look at the approaches used in areas that were relatively successful in containing the epidemic, it is abundantly clear IMHO that the approaches used in these nations would be largely ineffective in the USA. New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan are islands that are relatively easily isolated from outside infections. They also have much smaller populations than the USA. Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea are relatively homogeneous culturally so obtaining compliance is much easier than in the USA. Thailand, Vietnam, and South Korea also have governments that have frequently used major force to control the population.

I believe that we need to first look very hard at what will work here in the USA to prevent us from getting in a situation where we have community spread in many places. We have avoided previous pandemics by doing this, but in fact we were aided by the type of disease and some very good luck. We need to greatly beef up our capability to do this. This will include plans to safely repatriate US travelers when epidemics start in other nations. It may involve considerable inconvenience to travelers, but we are going to need the capability. We have too many people and too many points of entry to just ignore the issue. Once it gets going inside the USA, controlling it isn't ever going to be easy.

We also need to improve our local health departments ability to respond to outbreaks and control them early. IMHO the public needs to be educated to the idea that public health enforcement exists and will be used! We have the legal mechanisms in place because we previously used them to deal with localized epidemics. Our current politicians seem to believe that the population will simply revolt if they try to enforce isolation/quarantine. That has to change. The public has to know that these steps will be taken and will be enforced. In all the nations you cited as better examples (except Japan), that is the case. The local tracking and tracing capability needs to be maintained adequately to handle an outbreak, but that is pointless if there is no enforcement. We are experiencing that right now and have been for months.

The third arm of the changes we need was outlined by Tony Fauci in his conversation with the Dean of the medical school. We need to develop the capability to create antivirals "on demand" to attack things like COVID-19 early on. The "warp speed" effort to develop a vaccine is great, but this type of effort will always take many months because you have to vaccinate a large percentage of the population to gain an effect. In the meantime, you can't have people dying in large numbers. The only way to avoid lockdowns is to treat the disease successfully. We are getting there with COVID-19. 
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousd...definition

However, right now things like this take too long. We need more "generic" methodologies that deliver an effective treatment in weeks or at most two months. Is this easy? No. Can it be done? Probably. We are on the edge of being able to do it. Make it a priority and it will happen. This is the type of  approach that the public will like, because they don't have to do anything but fund it. No loss of freedoms or annoying isolation requirements. Money will be made as well. What's not to like? As a side benefit, we may actually cure the common cold.

Being an island is not a protection from COVID in the days of airplanes.  The United States did not get COVID-19 because of people poring over the border from Mexico or Canada; we got it from people with the disease flying arriving at airports.  And Taiwan, New Zealand, Japan, etc. all had planes bringing people with COVID-19 in.  The pandemic was out of control because we mismanaged it; the pandemic was kept under control at other countries because they managed it better.

BC