The prediction I have commandeered as my title, today, comes from a New York Times' Opinion column by David Wallace-Wells. The column, published on November 26, 2025, was titled this way, in the hard copy edition of the paper: "There Will Be Another Pandemic. How Will We Respond?" The title online is significantly different. I'll reveal that later.
My comment on the Wallace-Wells' column is, actually, a comment on a specific statement made in that column, but before I cite to that statement, and then outline my reaction to it, let me give you an overview of Wallace-Wells' opinion piece. Basically, Wallace-Wells is taking exception to something that the current director of the National Institutes of Health said, when the director (Jay Bhattacharya) was asked what we should do, in the event of another sudden pandemic.
Well, what should we do, according to Jay Bhattacharya? The answer: "Nothing."
"Nothing" is the "blunt answer" that Wallace-Wells' gives us as his summary of the advice being dished out by the current director of our National Institutes of Health. Please allow me to associate myself with Wallace-Wells' reaction to this "do nothing" pronouncement. Wallace-Wells disagrees with that "do nothing" prescription, but in fairness to Bhattacharya, it appears that his actual advice is not, exactly, to "do nothing." What Bhattacharya actually thinks is revealed in the title used in the online edition of Wallace-Wells' column: "We Can’t Diet and Exercise Our Way Out of the Next Pandemic."
Bhattacharya doesn't actually recommend "nothing." He recommends individual diet and exercise as the way to prepare for the possibility of another sudden pandemic - and apparently thinks that such individual action is also the right way to react to the reality of such a pandemic, if or when one appears. Other healthy habits are also endorsed.
Here's from the column, with Wallace-Wells' reaction:
Perhaps this sounds half reasonable since, theoretically, a healthier population should fare better facing any health threat. Or perhaps it sounds like eugenics, since it suggests that we should think of infectious disease as a kind of fitness test for the country — and should worry more about getting Americans to pass that test than about protecting those who can’t. How exactly might we go about doing that? “By stopping smoking, controlling hypertension or diabetes, or getting up and walking more,” Bhattacharya and Memoli write.This is all fine as generic health advice, of course. But 38 million Americans have diabetes. More than 100 million have heart disease. More than 100 million are obese. Massively improve those numbers and there will still be tens of millions staring down a novel pathogen in ill health. And as a program of pandemic response? Like much of MAHA, it is magical thinking that has the secondary effect of laying responsibility for public health outcomes at the feet of the individual (emphasis added).
Bhattacharya, in other words, believes that individual action is the correct preparation for and response to a pandemic, which, as the definition of "pandemic" makes clear, means that the same disease is being experienced by (almost) everyone, and is, typically, worldwide in extent.
Are we "in this together," or not? A "pandemic" is one very clear indication that we are, ultimately, not just individuals, but that we are, beyond that, part of the whole. [Cite here to John Donne].
If Donne (and Wallace-Wells) are right (and I'm associating myself with them; I think they're right), then WE need to prepare for a pandemic. I am using the plural: "we." Action is needed, and it needs to be "collective" action not "individual" action.
That is true of virtually every important issue confronting us now: the economy; the housing crisis; the growing threat posed by nuclear weapons; and... let's not forget it: Global Warming.
Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, individual. It tolls for thee. John Donne is reminding us - and I am passing on this reminder - we are "in this together."
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