We are no safer now than we were before the virus arrived.
Five years after COVID-19 exposed the fragility of global health systems, a new assessment from the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board finds the world no better fortified against pandemic threat than before the crisis began. The report, titled 'A World on the Edge,' arrives as emerging diseases like hantavirus and Ebola grow more frequent — a reminder that nature does not pause while institutions deliberate. It is a familiar human pattern: catastrophe clarifies, then fades, and the unglamorous work of prevention loses its urgency before it is ever truly begun.
- The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board has concluded that despite millions of deaths and economic devastation, COVID-19 produced no meaningful structural improvement in the world's ability to prevent the next pandemic.
- Hantavirus and Ebola are not waiting — both pathogens are increasing in frequency and severity, signaling that the biological conditions favoring pandemic emergence have worsened, not stabilized.
- The core failure is political: pandemic infrastructure is invisible when it works, generates no electoral reward, and was quietly defunded once COVID-19 receded from hospital wards and front pages.
- The board's report calls for structural investment in disease surveillance, global laboratory networks, redundant supply chains, and rapid-activation financial mechanisms — particularly in lower-income regions left most exposed.
- The window for action is narrowing: urbanization, habitat destruction, and climate change are actively expanding the conditions under which new pathogens emerge and spread.
Five years after COVID-19 reshaped the world, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board has delivered a stark verdict: we are no safer now than we were before the virus arrived. The 2026 report, "A World on the Edge," concludes that despite the pandemic's staggering human and economic toll, the international community has failed to build the resilience systems needed to prevent the next catastrophe.
What makes the assessment especially urgent is the concurrent rise of emerging infectious diseases. Hantavirus has grown more frequent and damaging. Ebola continues to resurface with alarming regularity across West and Central Africa. Experts treat these outbreaks not as isolated events but as harbingers — evidence that the conditions favoring pandemic emergence have not improved, and in some respects have worsened.
The disconnect between crisis and response is not accidental. Pandemic preparedness demands sustained investment in unglamorous infrastructure: surveillance systems, laboratory networks, trained epidemiologists, and resilient supply chains. These systems are invisible when they work and generate no immediate political reward. Once COVID-19 receded from headlines, funding returned to baseline and momentum for reform dissipated.
The board's report identifies what must change: strengthening outbreak response capacity in every region, building redundancy into critical supply chains, creating financial mechanisms that activate quickly when new threats emerge, and replacing the competitive scrambling of the COVID era with genuine international cooperation. Urbanization, habitat destruction, and climate change continue to expand the conditions under which new pathogens arise. Another pandemic is not a distant theoretical concern — it is, the board warns, a near-term practical certainty.
Five years after COVID-19 reshaped the world, a sobering assessment has emerged from the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board: we are no safer now than we were before the virus arrived. The 2026 report, titled "A World on the Edge," concludes that despite the pandemic's staggering human and economic toll, the international community has failed to build the resilience systems necessary to prevent the next catastrophe.
The finding cuts against the grain of what many assumed would follow such a visible crisis. COVID-19 killed millions, disrupted supply chains, overwhelmed hospitals, and exposed the fragility of global health infrastructure. One might reasonably expect that such a reckoning would trigger sweeping reform—new funding mechanisms, strengthened disease surveillance networks, coordinated protocols for rapid response. Instead, the board's analysis suggests the world has largely returned to its pre-pandemic posture of underpreparedness.
What makes this assessment particularly urgent is the concurrent rise in emerging infectious diseases. Hantavirus, a pathogen spread primarily through contact with infected rodent droppings, has become more frequent and more damaging in recent years. Ebola, which periodically erupts in West and Central Africa, continues to resurface with alarming regularity. These are not hypothetical threats. They are active, spreading, and in some cases becoming more severe. Experts point to these outbreaks as harbingers—evidence that the conditions favoring pandemic emergence have not improved, and in some respects have worsened.
The disconnect between crisis and response is not accidental. Pandemic preparedness requires sustained investment in unglamorous infrastructure: disease surveillance systems that operate continuously, laboratory networks capable of rapid pathogen identification, trained epidemiologists positioned globally, and supply chains for protective equipment and vaccines. These systems generate no immediate political reward. They are invisible when they work. Once the acute phase of COVID-19 receded from headlines and hospital wards, political attention moved elsewhere. Funding that had been mobilized in emergency mode returned to baseline levels. The momentum for systemic change dissipated.
The board's report does not simply document failure—it identifies what must change. Pandemic-resilient health systems require structural investment: strengthening outbreak response capacity in every region, not just wealthy nations; establishing redundancy in critical supply chains; creating financial mechanisms that can be activated quickly when a new threat emerges; and fostering genuine international cooperation rather than the competitive scrambling that characterized much of the COVID response. The report emphasizes that these improvements are not optional luxuries but urgent necessities.
What distinguishes this moment from the immediate post-COVID period is clarity about the cost of inaction. The world now has a recent, visceral memory of what pandemic failure looks like. It also has a clear warning: the conditions that enabled COVID-19 to spread globally remain in place. Urbanization continues. Wildlife habitat destruction accelerates. Climate change alters the geographic range of disease vectors. The probability of another pandemic is not a distant theoretical concern—it is a near-term practical certainty. The only question is whether the world will finally act to reduce its severity.
Notable Quotes
The world is more at risk of a pandemic now than before COVID— Global health experts cited in the GPMB report
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why would a report like this matter now, five years later? Shouldn't we have learned by now?
You'd think so. But learning requires action, and action requires sustained political will. COVID faded from the front page. So did the urgency.
But people remember how bad it was. Doesn't that memory translate into support for prevention?
Memory is short in politics. The acute crisis is over. Hospitals aren't overflowing. People want to move on. Investing in invisible infrastructure—surveillance networks, lab capacity, stockpiles—doesn't win elections.
So what's the actual risk here? Is another pandemic imminent?
Not necessarily imminent, but inevitable eventually. The conditions that created COVID haven't changed. More urbanization, more contact between humans and wildlife, climate shifts. The board is saying we're running out of time to prepare.
What would meaningful preparation actually look like?
Real funding for disease surveillance in every region, not just rich countries. Trained epidemiologists positioned globally. Supply chains that can pivot quickly. International agreements that hold even when there's no crisis. It's boring, expensive work.
And we're not doing that?
Not at the scale the report says we need to. We're back to where we started in 2019—underfunded, fragmented, reactive instead of proactive.
So this report is essentially saying we wasted the lesson?
Not wasted. Available. We know what we need to do. The question is whether we'll do it before the next one hits.