COVID-19 Year 5: Are We Prepared for the Next Pandemic?

Please join us for a free fireside chat with acclaimed epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm, author of the upcoming book The Big One: How to Prepare for World-Altering Pandemics to Come. As we enter the fifth year of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed over 1.1 million American lives to date (most of them unvaccinated), social workers are understandably eager to put this public health crisis in the rearview mirror. But as experts on the traumatic impacts of these disasters, and the complex psychosocial and related factors in disaster response, social workers have a unique professional obligation to consider: How can we best prepare for the next pandemic? Dr. Osterholm, founding Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and advisor to the Biden Administration on COVID-19 response, will discuss lessons learned from current and prior pandemics, and the hard truths about what it will take to prevent a catastrophe…