It has obviously been a huge learning curve, and the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic is that every country could have responded better. Aside from populist leaders denying the severity, I don’t think anyone is to blame.

What does bother me is that we are not thinking of the next. Normal protocol is to deal the now, and then have a year or two of commissions and enquiries.

Because there is bound to be multiple waves, and any other pandemic can still occur at any time, we need to start our next level of response now.

We have some facts we can base our new responses on:

Aside from the originating city/country, the virus arrives via visitors. If you stop all visitors, you don’t get the virus.

Stopping all visitors is not good in other ways:

• tourism
• business
• sport
• repatriation

So some countries have introduced quarantines. The countries that introduced these earliest and hardest have been the least affected by the pandemic.

Quarantine is a relatively cheap solution, relative to deaths and economic losses. It is fair to say that there should be no limit on expense put towards quarantine. Because if you get it perfect, your city/country can complete avoid the virus.

Here’s the thing:

Countries like Australia, with no land borders and a need to protect flora and fauna, already have super-tight quarantine measures in place for plants and animals.

For example, “All pets entering Australia, except those from New Zealand or Norfolk Island are subject to 10 days of quarantine at the Mickleham Quarantine Facility at Melbourne.”

We simply need to apply the same levels of biosecurity to humans entering our city/country. And that means investment in new and dedicated infrastructure. Not using existing facilities like homes and hotels.

Solution:

Purpose-built quarantine centres, designed for pandemics, with their own airports.

We can start building them today. Even if the next pandemic is 100 years away, an airport and buildings will still be the solution. And still a mighty cheap way of avoiding an economic crisis.

Buildings and runways require maintenance, and more value can be had from using them for other things. So meanwhile, lets use them for animals and plants, for refugees, or as a low-security prison (we can free existing prisoners in case of a pandemic).

Facilities:

• Own, international length airport
• Self-contained accomodation units, with no connection to each other
• “airlocks” for the transmission of food and other supplies
• Highly trained staff

The jobs are low-skilled but require a high degree of trust, so outsourcing is not acceptable.

Given the potential of decades between being needed, staff can be used for other roles – anything that can be done remotely, for example cyber-security. As long as the key criteria is to be able to manage a quarantine situation, we can have staff who perform any other government roles.

Place the facility close enough to a regional city and it is good for the economy.

Bonus points:

Have some planes that can be adapted to transporting potentially contagious people.

If Australia already had the above, I am sure we would be virus-free today