Is the US prepared to deal with another pandemic or widespread health crisis?

Based on current assessments, experts and health policy organizations paint a concerning picture of declining U.S. pandemic preparedness, alongside some counter-pressures from Congress. Here's what the evidence shows:

Warning Signs of Reduced Preparedness

Federal funding cuts: The administration's proposed FY 2026 budget sought dramatic reductions to core public health infrastructure. The President's proposed FY 2026 budget for the CDC amounted to a 53 percent reduction in funding as compared to FY 2024. Within that, CDC's Public Health Emergency Preparedness program faced a 52 percent funding reduction. Over 100 public health programs and funding lines would have been eliminated under the proposed FY 2026 budget, including 61 programs at CDC.

Congress ultimately pushed back on the deepest cuts: the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 maintained CDC's program-level funding at approximately $9.1 billion—essentially flat with FY 2025—and rejected many of the administration's deepest proposed cuts while preserving core agency structures. However, by May 2026, CDC's workforce had fallen by approximately 3,600 from the end of FY 2024, a reduction of roughly 28 percent.

Loss of key infrastructure: Several capacity-building efforts have been rolled back. A report flags the March 2025 termination of more than $12 billion in COVID-19-era grants — funding that had been broadened to support infectious disease monitoring, laboratory capacity, emergency preparedness, and mental health services. Additionally, the cancellation of nearly $500 million in contracts funding mRNA vaccine research and development in August 2025 represents a potential disruption to countermeasures needed for the next public health emergency.

The White House's own pandemic office has been effectively dismantled: in 2025, Gerald Parker resigned as head of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, leaving the office with no employees.

Global coordination weakened: The U.S. formally completed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization in January 2026, reducing access to global data sources that support outbreak tracking and response. This comes as the administration dismantled USAID, the federal humanitarian agency that played a role in global outbreak prevention and response.

Hospital-level readiness at risk: The proposed FY 2027 budget would eliminate the Hospital Preparedness Program entirely and cut the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement by approximately 52 percent.

Current Threat Environment Adds Urgency

This is happening against a backdrop of active disease pressures. In 2025, the country faced the most severe flu season in nearly a decade, rising measles outbreaks, continued H5N1 avian influenza activity, and a growing number of extreme weather events—all while the federal systems built over decades to help states prepare came under significant strain.

The Trust for America's Health "Ready or Not 2026" report found uneven state-level readiness: access to paid sick leave varies widely across U.S. regions—from 98 percent of workers in Pacific states to 67 percent in East South Central states—with gaps most concentrated among low-wage, part-time, and service-sector workers.

Some Investment Continues

Not all signals are negative. CDC's FY 2026 budget request included $963,291,000 for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, an increase intended to keep the nation prepared for the next public health threat and enhance investments in a proposed Biothreat Radar Detection System. Globally, WHO Member States adopted a historic Pandemic Agreement in May 2025, setting out a comprehensive approach to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

Bottom Line

Public health experts broadly describe the current moment as one of significant vulnerability. As one 2026 analysis put it, "this convergence of active threats and federal instability represents a defining stress test for the nation's preparedness architecture — and many states are not well positioned to absorb the shock." While Congress has partially restored some proposed cuts, the combined effect of workforce reductions, clawed-back grants, canceled vaccine R&D contracts, WHO withdrawal, and USAID's dissolution suggests the U.S. is less prepared than it was in the years immediately following COVID-19 — even as biological threats like H5N1 and measles resurgence continue to test the system in real time.