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Why the COVID-19 Pandemic is Not a Surprise
Why the COVID-19 Pandemic is Not a Surprise
Published 04-02-20
Submitted by America's Charities
Not "if" but "when"
For researchers like Dr. Fred Cassels, who leads the Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases team at PATH’s Center for Vaccine Innovation and Access, the emergence of a new strain of coronavirus comes as no surprise.
As with influenza, he explains, there are hundreds of strains of coronavirus, most of which infect only animals. Milder variations can lead to the common cold. But other strains have significant mortality rates, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) at about 10 percent and Middle East respiratory syndrome at approximately 35 percent.
The SARS outbreak of 2002–2003 was fortunately contained within seven months. The rapid suppression also meant that funding and priorities drifted elsewhere. In 2004, Dr. Cassels joined the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to manage the portfolio of projects that sprung up in reaction to the outbreak. He was discouraged by the lack of momentum to continue learning about the science of coronaviruses and what it would take to produce and fully test a vaccine: “I remember saying to the team, ‘It’s not if there’s another outbreak, but when.’”
Staying one jump ahead
Trends such as climate change, urbanization, and rapid international travel form an ideal breeding ground for infectious disease outbreaks. But Dr. Cassels insists that, from a scientific perspective, there’s reason for optimism—if we commit to learning from data.
He draws on his experience with SARS. During that outbreak, NIAID had a jump start on its response because of previous research findings on animal coronaviruses (uncovered before they jumped to humans) and on the strains known to cause the common cold in humans.
“We didn’t need to start from scratch,” Dr. Cassels says. “Like viruses, science can leap too, in surprising ways that can serve us if we maintain enough momentum on research and development—even when outbreaks are not in the news.”
While COVID-19 is a new strain, it’s a familiar virus. Dr. Cassels predicts that the earlier work on SARS vaccines will shorten the timeline for developing one to address COVID-19.
Vaccines and other strategies to slow outbreaks
PATH is heartened by the global funding that has been committed to accelerate development of a vaccine targeted at COVID-19. There are still many unanswered questions about this new strain, but Dr. Cassels suggests that we know enough about the molecular building blocks of all coronaviruses to explore, for example, a universal coronavirus vaccine, much like PATH’s pursuit of a universal flu vaccine.
With the work on vaccines under way, tried and true public health tools will help slow the spread and severity of outbreaks: surveillance, tracking contacts of patients, isolating suspected cases identified at airports and transportation hubs, and treatment. Ultimately, that’s how the global community makes strides in prevention—by drawing upon both scientific expertise and public health know-how. It's the hallmark of PATH’s work: harnessing diagnostics, treatments, vaccines, and strengthening health systems to protect communities from disease.
At PATH, we believe innovation—whether in surveillance, diagnostics, behavior change, systems strengthening, or vaccine development and testing—is how we tackle this outbreak and others like it.
“Building upon a foundation of scientific inquiry is how we can get one step ahead of a disease,” says Dr. Cassels. “That’s how we use the power of science to its fullest capacity.”
America's Charities
America's Charities
America's Charities inspires employees and organizations to support the causes they care about. We help nonprofits fundraise unrestricted, sustainable dollars through the workplace, and we help employers achieve their giving, engagement, and social impact goals. We do this to bring more resources to the nonprofits that are changing our world.
Who we serve:
- Charities – We help charities fundraise recurring, unrestricted, sustainable dollars through the workplace. Click here for a printable list of our members.
- Employers – We help employers achieve their giving, engagement, and social impact goals. Employers seeking to build or boost a strong culture; engage their employees and help them find purpose and meaning; attract, recruit, and retain talent; and ultimately achieve better corporate profitability and social impact, partner with America's Charities to launch or revitalize their workplace giving programs. We offer employers a suite of employee giving software packages, tools, and resources.
- Employee Donors – Through our work with charities and employers, we inspire individual donors to connect with great causes, support nonprofits in a recurring, sustainable manner, and make a personal, social impact.
Core Services:
- We offer a full suite of employee giving and engagement tools, including easy-to-use workplace giving technology platforms ranging from a straightforward, out-of-the-box option, to a comprehensive platform that integrates matching gifts, employee volunteering, cause campaigns, and more. Each of our solutions is tailored to fit an employer's specific needs and social impact goals, and deliver personalized, highly social online giving experiences.
- We generate sustainable unrestricted financial support for member charities through the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), state and local giving campaigns and private sector workplace giving campaigns.
- We provide charitable funds management services to nonprofits and private and public sector employers while maintaining a resolute commitment to transparency and accountability.
- We provide comprehensive consulting services with expertise in employee engagement, corporate social responsibility (CSR), workplace giving program and strategy development, benchmarking, analysis, and more.
- We help companies support their employees in times of distress and hardship through Employee Assistance Funds (EAFs), also known as Employee Relief Funds or Employee Crisis Funds. By working with us, a company increases its flexibility around the types of hardships the fund can cover and lowers its administrative burdens.
Since 1980, our collective experience and ability to provide the highest level of personal service and expert consulting to our member charities and employer clients has resulted in more than $750 million for more than 25,000 nonprofits through federal, state and local government, and corporate workplace giving programs.
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