In the 38 years Anthony Fauci, MD, spent as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he was often asked what his worst nightmare was. His answer remained consistent: The emergence of a new viral pathogen capable of spreading quickly and causing significant morbidity and mortality.
"For the past three and a half years, we all have been living my worst nightmare: a deadly pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, exactly the type of virus that I most feared," the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases wrote in an article published Oct. 18 in Science Translational Medicine. "COVID-19 has exacted a toll that truly is nightmarish, claiming the lives of more than 1.1 million people in the United States and, according to some estimates, [more than] 20 million people globally."
Now, Dr. Fauci's primary worry is that lessons learned from the nation's COVID-19 response will be forgotten. The nation is in a much better position to handle COVID-19 today and can reflect on what went right and what went wrong, though he worries sustained focus will dwindle and ultimately hamper preparedness in the face of the next "inevitable pandemic," he said.
When it comes to the nation's COVID-19 response, key lessons were learned from both a scientific and public health standpoint. On the scientific front, the response was largely successful, with a new vaccine developed in a record 11 months from the time the sequence of the virus was known. However, he said the public health response largely fell short amid a lack of communication between states and the federal government, a disconnect between the public health infrastructure and healthcare organizations, as well as misinformation and vaccine hesitancy.
"Hopefully, corporate memory of COVID-19 will endure and trigger a sustained interest and support of both the scientific and public health buckets. If not, many of us will be spending a lot of time awake in bed or having nightmares when asleep," Dr. Fauci wrote.
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