Pandemic ‘Weather Service’ Key Before Next Outbreak, House Told (1)

The U.S. could speed its response to future pandemics by building a National Weather Service-like system to predict disease outbreaks the same way it forecasts the weather.

Caitlin Rivers, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, proposed Wednesday the idea of creating a national center to forecast disease outbreaks during a Covid-19 hearing by the House spending panel. The House Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee called the hearing in part to examine long-term investments to improve the response for the next pandemic, and Rivers said the proposal was a longer-term ...