A Survey of Pandemic Early Warnings (1999–2019)

Abstract

This survey of pandemic early warnings contains reference to documents issued between 1999 and 2019. By “early warnings” we do not mean conventional early warning systems, but, rather, documents that appeared prior to the COVID outbreak and that explicitly called attention to the threats posed by ever more frequent disease outbreaks with pandemic potential or to the lack of appropriate pandemic preparedness and response capabilities at local or international level. The survey does not purport to be exhaustive, but, rather, only illustrative of an abundance of documents that warned of pandemic threats during the years leading up to the COVID outbreak. This survey, we suggest, can be instrumental to the work of professional researchers, educators, journalists, and policymakers currently concerned with questions related to the public understanding of evidence-based health policies or pandemic communication.

Keywords: Pandemics, COVID, Early Warnings, Grey Literature