Coronavirus: Could Education Systems Have Been Better Prepared?

The world was caught by surprise with the global pandemic emergency. But was it entirely unexpected? Pandemics have always been a likelihood. A pandemic has occurred every 10-50 years for the past centuries. In any given year, a 1% probability exists of an influenza pandemic that causes nearly 6 million pneumonia and influenza deaths or more globally. This translates into a 25% likelihood of such a pandemic over 30 years, and that’s just influenza.

It’s not ‘if’ a pandemic occurs, therefore, but ‘when’. ‘In order to mitigate human and financial losses as a result of future global pandemics, we must plan now’ was the call of experts in 2016 in the immediate aftermath of the Ebola virus epidemic in western Africa and the international organizations’ admission of the response having been slow. In this latest major and unfolding crisis, the emphasis has been on different health systems’ responses….………………..