Opinion: A ‘Swiss cheese’ approach can give us a second chance to contain Covid-19
Fifteen years ago, in response to the threat of H5N1 avian influenza, my team at the White House developed the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza. We recognized that the world would have to make its way through the first wave of a pandemic, and possibly the second wave, without a vaccine.
Led by Drs. Richard Hatchett and Carter Mecher, we worked with disease modelers and key stakeholders to develop a strategy of early, coordinated interventions such as school closures and social distancing to delay and lower the peak of illnesses and to reduce the total number of cases in communities. Two years later we published this guidance, along with this now almost iconic graphic. Today this strategy is called flattening the curve.
