Given
the abrupt global disruption caused by SARS-CoV-2, one might think that the
COVID pandemic was an unpredictable event. But in the years leading up to the
emergence of the COVID pandemic, several documents had already been warning of
the increasing occurrences of new disease outbreaks with pandemic potential and
lack of corresponding policies to promote pandemic preparedness and response.
In this article, we call these documents “early warnings”. We argue that a survey of early warnings can
help science communicators to promote the public understanding of
evidence-based pandemic preparedness and response policies at local or
international level. Our proposal differs from other approaches to pandemic
preparedness and response in that it highlights the relevance of documents
published before the COVID outbreak. We show that the early warnings did
not become outdated after the COVID outbreak, but, rather, that they are even
more pressing now.
© Como citar este artigo:
Araujo, Marcelo de; Costa, Daniel de Vasconcelos. 2024. "Promoting science communication for the purpose of pandemic preparedness and response: An assessment of the relevance of pre-COVID pandemic early warnings". Human Affairs 34 (2): 10-26. doi 10.1515/humaff-2023-0083
