Vaccines, Variants, Mutations: COVID-19, Monkeypox, and more.

Jeremy Youde, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota Duluth, is an expert on the policy response to pandemics and is available to talk about global health policy.QuotesViruses don’t care about borders, viruses don’t care about our economy. Many viruses are like a forest fire. Governments have to respond to health issues that cross borders.It's difficult to get cooperation in the best of circumstances when we're talking about economic policy and trade relationships. But when we are talking about health, it can become that much more complicated. We are going to have to adjust policies because the situation is changing. We aren’t in control when there is something out there that’s doing its own thing.In my own work, I look at what happens at the national level, the government level, the international level, and with the World Health Organization. Disputes arise about sharing resources…. Decisions about health oftentimes will reflect broader political, societal, and economic situations. That happens on the international scale, but it also happens within countries. In the United States, because we are such a decentralized system, we see different policies for different states… and we see how each policy has consequences for the eventual outcomes.The need for a global body that can coordinate international responses to health threats has never been greater.