“Two hundred years ago, if I wanted to go to the other side of the world, I had to spend months on a boat,” says Arthur Reingold, an expert in infectious disease at the University of California, Berkeley. “Today I can be virtually anywhere in the world in 36 hours on a plane.”
Despite the increased risks, the world has many advantages it didn’t have in 1918: vaccines, antibiotics, sophisticated equipment for diagnosing illness, and a wide range of effective treatments, as well as experienced public health organizations to direct efforts.
“We’ve got a lot of tools that are constantly evolving, constantly improving,” Reingold says.
In the meantime, experts say the most effective thing countries can do is invest in public health systems so they’re better prepared when the next destructive virus comes along.
“We know with certainty that these types of outbreaks will continue to happen,” Reingold says. “So we need to be prepared.”