While another pandemic is a when-will-it-happen certainty, the lessons learned during COVID-19 will make us better able to meet and minimize the effect of a Disease X outbreak.

By Jonathan Brennan-Badal

Summary:
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses in global health preparedness, but technological advancements, improved surveillance, and stronger global cooperation have significantly enhanced readiness for future pandemics.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Faster Diagnostics: Automation and assay miniaturization have drastically improved testing efficiency, reducing response time in future pandemics.
  2. Enhanced Surveillance: Wastewater monitoring, real-time sequencing, and epidemiological data collection allow for earlier detection of emerging threats.
  3. Ongoing Preparedness: Continued technological advancements and decentralized response efforts will ensure greater resilience against future outbreaks.

When it first became clear in early 2020 that COVID-19 was going to become a global pandemic, a stark reality hit the biotech and healthcare industries: We weren’t ready. The speed at which the virus traversed the planet made it very clear that there wasn’t enough time to prepare in terms of testing, let alone determining what should be done to prevent its spread.

The lessons that crystalized over the next few years were hard learned, proving that the global health infrastructure had significant vulnerabilities. While many view COVID-19 as a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, experts agree that another global outbreak is not a question of if but when. With increasing globalization, climate change, and evolving pathogens, preparing for the next pandemic is more critical than ever.

It’s easy to draw the conclusion that the world is doomed to go through the same cycle of panic and uncertainty again, not to mention the corresponding loss of life. However, there are strong reasons to believe that shouldn’t be the case. For all the damage it did, the COVID-19 pandemic also seeded a wave of innovation that ensured we are and will be much better prepared for the next pandemic. From advancements in automation and assay miniaturization to improvements in disease surveillance, the advancements of the past five years have laid a stronger foundation for rapid response and scalability.

Automated Testing and Assay Miniaturization Have Improved the Timeframe for Pandemic Response

Everyone can remember the spring and summer of 2020, when COVID-19 tests were in short supply. Though tests for the virus were available as soon as early March, The New York Times reported in late April that tests were still in much shorter supply than necessary to contain the spread of the disease, and there was a question of how fast tests could be processed—a critical factor in pandemic response.

One of the most critical breakthroughs: the expansion of automation in diagnostic testing. Automation has been widely adopted in laboratories worldwide, significantly increasing efficiency and preparedness. Automated liquid handling systems and high-throughput testing platforms have become much more prevalent, allowing for faster and more reliable detection of emerging pathogens. AI is only scratching the surface of its potential to aid these workflows, a technology that simply didn’t exist at the start of the decade. This enhanced infrastructure ensures that if there’s a hint of another pandemic, diagnostic capacity can be scaled up much more rapidly, saving both time and lives.

In parallel, the last few years have seen continual advances in assay miniaturization, which has improved supply chain resilience. By drastically reducing reagent consumption—sometimes by a factor of 50—these innovations have ensured that limited resources can be stretched further in crisis situations. This means that laboratories can process far more tests using the same amount of materials, mitigating the risk of shortages and enabling a more sustained response.

This doesn’t necessarily mean the whole world would be ready to simply flip a switch and crank out tests for a previously unknown disease tomorrow, and if anything, there has been evidence that there are more cracks in the global supply chain than the ones created solely by COVID-19. What is certain is that technological improvements will allow the scientific community to react much faster than it did in 2020, ideally in just days instead of months.

Surveillance and Global Cooperation Have Improved

On top of a quicker response in the worst-case scenario of a Disease X pandemic there’s a significantly better chance we’ll see it coming much sooner. The global health community has both much clearer ideas of how it should be searching for the next potential pandemic and better tools to do it.

Wastewater monitoring, which was virtually unheard of before COVID-19, has now become a standard tool for tracking viral outbreaks. Sequencing technologies and real-time 

epidemiological data collection allow for earlier detection of potential threats. These systems provide a critical early warning network, giving public health officials valuable time to act before a heretofore unseen disease spirals out of control.

Another bright spot in the battle against COVID-19 was how scientists all over the world came together and pooled their knowledge and resources to achieve more than they could have done working separately. This principle will continue to be important when it comes to preparedness, as shifting priorities, particularly when there is a change in political administration, mean that surveillance and readiness efforts can’t be solely dependent upon support at the national government level.

Fortunately, the increased adoption of advanced technologies over the past five years has lessened the reliance on centralized responses. Local governments, all the way down to the level of individual cities, have developed their own capabilities and can draw on their experiences from the first part of the decade as validation. Cities like New York took the lead in scaling up education, testing and treatment for COVID-19, and can share that expertise with officials around the world. This decentralized approach increases the likelihood that preparedness efforts will continue even when national policies fluctuate.

The More Time Between Pandemics, The More Ready We Will Be

The trickiest thing about the next pandemic is not knowing when it will occur. It could be five years, it could be 10. If we’re lucky, it might be decades from now. Or it could be tomorrow.

While it might seem counterintuitive, though, time is actually on our side in this equation, because the advancements in technology are only going to keep coming. Every year that passes without another pandemic allows for further improvements in automation, surveillance, and supply chain logistics. The bonds that formed during COVID-19 laid the groundwork for a more responsive and adaptive system, one that truly spans the globe. The next pandemic may be inevitable, but as time passes, the world becomes better equipped to handle it swiftly and effectively.

By embracing these advancements and maintaining vigilance, we can ensure that future pandemics are met with greater speed, efficiency, and efficacy—ultimately saving lives and relegating the most painful parts of COVID-19 to the domain of increasingly distant memory.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonathan Brennan-Badal is CEO of Opentrons Labworks Inc., a company focused on providing advanced laboratory automation solutions. As the leader of Opentrons, Brennan-Badal has established a presence for the company in the industry, developing innovative technology and supporting the Lab 4.0 movement.

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