thoughts.

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february 2023

vaccine hesitancy and empathy as a public health intervention

Vaccination has saved more human lives than any other medical invention in history. A resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases linked with reduced vaccine confidence indicates that hesitancy threatens to reverse decades of public health progress. Reasons for vaccine hesitancy are diverse and exacerbated by the contemporary political climate and digital age, however a through line among motives often includes mistrust in public health institutions.

Mistrust in experts and health institutions is a major driver of vaccine hesitancy. Without a robust acknowledgment of the histories that engendered this mistrust, current government and pharmaceutical public health interventions will remain insufficient.

To address concerns, empathetic practices prompting reconciliation must become central to public health strategy. If a concerted effort is not made to appropriately atone for the atrocities of the past to ameliorate mistrust in the population, our greatest public health tool to date will ultimately be rendered useless in the wake of the next pandemic.

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july 2025

why an early threat detection system is our best pandemic defense strategy

The COVID-19 pandemic served as a stark reminder that biological threats—whether natural or engineered—can upend health systems, destabilize national security, and stall economic progress worldwide. Since 2020, the world has gained invaluable lessons on how to better prepare for the next pandemic and, ideally, prevent it from occurring in the first place.

Experts across the biosecurity landscape—including CEPI and the Oxford Biosecurity Forecasting Group—have emphasized a shared insight: while not always possible, the best time to stop a pandemic is before it starts.

Epidemiologists have shown that the earlier a pathogen is detected, the greater the impact on saving lives. This is especially true given the exponential nature of disease transmission. A delay of just days or weeks in intervention can result in orders of magnitude more illness and death. To effectively reduce transmission within the first 100 days of an outbreak, we must detect threats before they silently spread. An early threat detection system could be the game-changer that redefines how we fight pandemics.

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