Nurse Practitioner Gabriela Huyke prepares for medical examination of a volunteer for the COVID-19 vaccine study at the Research Centers of America in Hollywood, Florida, on August 13, 2020.Northwell Health has treated more than 100,000 COVID-19 cases since March and we've learned valuable lessons.
It is timely now to consider how the lessons learned through research can help guide preparations for future resurgences, based on what we are seeing currently and our experiences from past pandemics. Although we can hope for the best, we have an obligation to prepare for the worst.Promising developments with vaccines in Phase Three clinical trials announced recently by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech offer hope for controlling COVID-19.
Unfortunately, US investments in research have not kept pace with inflation for more than 20 years. This has cost us time and lives because our science needs to catch up to COVID-19. It's time to reinvest in science, make up for lost time and prepare for future pandemics. COVID-19 was highly predictable, forecast by countless researchers, epidemiologists and public health experts in hundreds of books and publications.