Covid pandemic has not taught the world how to beat the next deadly virus

Even governments that decided against elimination, opting instead to flatten the curve, struggled to persuade people to follow basic control methods

For much of the past century, a strategy known as elimination was the gold standard for dealing with deadly new viruses. But China’s abrupt reversal of its Covid Zero policy, which took it to an extreme, has cast doubts over the approach and left a gaping hole in the world’s game plan for the next pandemic. 

Even outside China, elimination measures such as stay-at-home orders proved politically unpopular and difficult to carry out. With some medical experts doubting whether airborne respiratory pathogens can be suppressed, global public health officials are now without a consensus on how best to contain new