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Early Warning Systems for Pandemics
Carina J. Fearnley and Deborah Dixon
16 May 2020
Editorial: Early warning systems for pandemics: Lessons learned from natural hazards
Abstract
A pandemic was expected. Yet, as Mami Mizutori, Head of the UNISDR, states, “past warnings of a pandemic were often ignored, despite mounting evidence …”. At first glance, Early Warning Systems (EWS) developed for volcanic, earthquake, tsunami and flood hazards may seem inappropriate for diseases such as COVID-19. Unlike most environmental hazards that require organised evacuation away from a crisis point, epidemics and pandemics require people to stay put so as to cut off transmission routes. Rather than protect themselves by moving away from danger, people must protect others through their immobility. Yet, EWS are much more than simple systems that provide a siren or warning to move. For EWS to be effective they must be embedded in an extensive system of observation and communication that integrates different expert and policy cohorts, thresholds or tipping points, communication mediums and iconographies, for the provision of timely warnings to people with the aim of minimizing loss of life and reducing the social and economic impacts of disasters. Well-known examples are the Pacific Tsunami Early Warning Centre and the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). EWS are intended to convey risk levels in an easy to understand format, ensure credibility and accountability, and help create transparency between different stakeholders. As complex yet efficient assemblages of people, protocols and plans, EWS have been the subject of political as well as scientific experimentation since 1949, and can provide evidenced ‘lessons learned’ on how to translate scientific observations into alert systems as part of a pandemic response.
Reference
Fearnley, C. J., & Dixon, D. (2020). Editorial: Early warning systems for pandemics: Lessons learned from natural hazards, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 49, 101674. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101674