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

US Pandemic Preparedness: A Mixed and Concerning Picture

Based on current assessments, the United States' readiness for another pandemic or major health crisis shows significant vulnerabilities, with experts across multiple organizations expressing serious concern about eroding capacity even as some structural improvements from COVID-19 lessons remain in place.

Warning Signs and Weakened Infrastructure

Federal workforce and funding cuts have been substantial. CDC lost approximately one quarter of its civilian workforce between fiscal years 2024 and 2026, with reductions spanning global health, health promotion, scientific research, and communications. Similarly, the Health Resources and Services Administration, which funds Federally Qualified Health Centers and healthcare workforce development programs for underserved areas, lost approximately one quarter of its staff.

Emergency funding was clawed back. The March 2025 termination of more than $12 billion in COVID-19-era grants affected funding that had been broadened to support infectious disease monitoring, laboratory capacity, emergency preparedness, and mental health services. While court orders blocked terminations for plaintiff states and the District of Columbia, litigation remained unresolved through year's end, creating sustained uncertainty for preparedness planning at the health system level.

Vaccine research has been disrupted. The cancellation of nearly $500 million in contracts funding mRNA vaccine research and development in August 2025 represents a potential disruption to the research, development, and deployment of countermeasures needed for the next public health emergency.

Proposed budget cuts threaten core programs. According to Trust for America's Health's 2025 analysis, the President's proposed FY 2026 budget for the CDC amounted to a 53 percent reduction in funding as compared to FY 2024, and CDC's Public Health Emergency Preparedness program—the primary source of federal funding for state and local emergency preparedness—faced a 52 percent cut. Fortunately, 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 cuts, though the threat of future cuts remains, as 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.

Global health engagement has diminished. 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. This follows the broader dismantling of USAID, the federal humanitarian agency that played a role in global outbreak prevention and response, after the administration stated that large portions of USAID funding did not align with "core national interests."

Leadership gaps have emerged. The White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, created after COVID-19, saw its head resign in 2025, leaving the office with no employees.

Overall Assessment from Public Health Experts

The nonpartisan Trust for America's Health frames this starkly: decades of chronic underinvestment, compounded by workforce reductions, funding disruptions, and institutional uncertainty during 2025 and 2026, have weakened the system's capacity to protect communities from preventable disease and injury. Their 2026 "Ready or Not" report notes that 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 federal systems built over decades to help states prepare for and respond to emergencies came under significant strain.

Infection control experts echo this concern, warning that budget cuts to the CDC threaten disease surveillance, outbreak response, and public health programs, increasing risks from measles, avian flu, and future pandemics while straining health care infrastructure nationwide.

Some Positive Notes

Not everything is bleak. Global coordination has advanced somewhat: applying lessons learned from COVID-19, WHO, Member States, and partners have delivered significant advances in pandemic preparedness, prevention and response, including the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement adopted in May 2025 — though the U.S. withdrawal from WHO limits how much America benefits from this. Additionally, the trust-and-communication lessons from COVID are informing academic and clinical discussions, with experts at a 2026 Global Virus Network meeting emphasizing that rebuilding trust must happen before the next crisis, not during it.

Bottom Line

The overall trajectory suggests the U.S. is less prepared now than it was in the years immediately following COVID-19, primarily due to workforce attrition, funding instability, withdrawal from international health cooperation, and disrupted vaccine R&D — even though Congress has pushed back against some of the most severe proposed budget cuts. Public health experts broadly agree that sustained investment and stable federal leadership, rather than one-time responses, are what determine true readiness for the next crisis, and by that standard, the current trend line is concerning to the public health community even as some guardrails remain in place.