Was the covid pandemic preventable? Early on president Trump in an interview during December around the time he authorized our spending for Operation Warp Speed, he was told by the Chinese that the disease known as Covid- 19 was spread through the air. Different disease contagions are spread differently. Ebola was contained with help from the Obama administration which had a different transmission method. During his administration, President George Bush Jr. developed emergency preparedness which was a result of concerns during the Iraq war of weapons of mass destruction. The Obama Administration further developed this although Trump did not take this seriously until Covid-19 upended the end of his presidency. According to the CDC, there is always another contagion developing most recently the bird flu concerns that affected cattle and other farm animals as well as some farm workers. We learned alot during Covid-19 about what to do and what not to do as a contagion can rapidly spread, especially if it is transmitted through the air as covid did. Also, we had knowledge of similar viruses seen during Sars 1 which is why Covid was called Sars 2. Preventing a disease from spreading is possible if it is contained early and it burns itself out. In the case of covid, the rollout of PPI, tests and other scientific ideas was sloppy and haphazard and worse, politicized. This prevented and effective and coordinated response during the times we needed it most. Hospital systems created their own nursing shortages, the lack of effective masks or an organized way of manufacturing them or even the ideas that we needed respirators which were wrong and ultimately ended the lives of 84% of those who were placed on them. In the Michael Lewis Book, The Premonition he researched what went wrong and what went right during the pandemic. It is a good read and he explains the process of societal infection and how you can contain it early and prevent another covid-19. Recently, the NY Times also covered this in their recent article which asks the same question. Read the article below Can You Stop an Outbreak of a Contagious Disease? To effectively deal with a disease, you must act fast and effectively. We did neither and there was misinformation fear, closures and protocols that often did more harm than good. Many of the masks people wore did little to help and closing down society instead of acting decisively early on made the pandemic cost more and do more harm. We can do better. We just need to have departments designed to do the right thing when its needed. While different countries acted in different ways with varying levels of success, we fared worse than many countries because of our lack of consistency and process. We can do better and we should as we know how. We just need to be less selfish and more proactive with action plans that stop contagions in their infancy.