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

Is the US Prepared for Another Pandemic?

Based on current expert assessments, the consensus among public health experts and watchdog organizations is that the US is significantly less prepared than it should be—and in several respects, is moving backward rather than forward since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Key Warning Signs

Active Disease Threats Are Already Testing the System
The country isn't facing a hypothetical scenario—it's already managing multiple concurrent threats. The United States entered 2026 managing its most severe influenza season in nearly a decade, the highest measles case count since 1991, and sustained avian influenza surveillance — all while the federal public health infrastructure underpinning hospital and clinical emergency response was being significantly dismantled.

Major Funding Cuts to Core Infrastructure
In March 2025, HHS announced the termination of more than $12 billion in COVID-19-era grants—funding that, in addition to supporting the pandemic response, was intended to strengthen public health infrastructure. Laboratory capacity has been hit particularly hard: concurrent demands on public health laboratories in 2025, including confirmatory testing across 48 separate measles outbreaks, a tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas City, sustained H5N1 surveillance, and a severe influenza season, occurred simultaneously with federal funding terminations affecting more than $8.9 billion in Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity program support.

Proposed Budget Cuts Target Emergency Preparedness Specifically
Within the total proposed cut, CDC's Public Health Emergency Preparedness program faces a 52 percent funding reduction. More broadly, over 100 public health programs and funding lines would be eliminated under the President's proposed FY 26 budget, including 61 programs at CDC and 40 programs at SAMHSA—covering cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity prevention, HIV/AIDS prevention, global immunization, and substance use programs.

Workforce and Leadership Gaps
The White House's own pandemic office has essentially collapsed: In 2025, Gerald Parker resigned as head of the office, leaving the office with no employees.

Withdrawal from International Cooperation
In 2026, the U.S. announced its withdrawal from the WHO after almost 78 years of membership, which it said was in response to "the WHO's failures during the COVID-19 pandemic." Experts note this creates gaps in global surveillance: the withdrawal of the United States from WHO introduces a structural discontinuity in surveillance and financing that no complementary arrangement yet remedies.

State-Level Variation

The 2026 "Ready or Not" report from Trust for America's Health found uneven readiness across the country: the report places states and the District of Columbia into three performance tiers: 20 states in the high-performance tier, 17 states and the District of Columbia in the middle-performance tier, and 13 states in the low-performance tier. The report specifically warns that uncertainty and reductions in federal public health funding and staffing have introduced significant risks to long-term preparedness capacity, with effects likely to compound over time.

Some Counterpoints

Not everything is bleak. Existing infrastructure built over decades provides a baseline capability: the US has infrastructure in place that predates the current administration, and despite cuts being inflicted on biopreparedness budgets, there are existing protocols in place. Additionally, certain federal R&D investments continue—budget documents show funding for BARDA, the Strategic National Stockpile, and pandemic influenza programs persisting into FY2026, though often at reduced levels compared to pandemic-era peaks.

Bottom Line

The weight of expert opinion—from the CDC's own former officials to nonpartisan watchdogs like TFAH and the Council on Foreign Relations—suggests the US is not adequately prepared. The Council on Foreign Relations' task force concluded that U.S. and global efforts to prepare for the inevitability of pandemics provided the illusion—but not the reality—of preparedness. Combined with 2025-2026 funding cuts, workforce reductions, and withdrawal from international health cooperation, many experts argue the US is currently less prepared than it was even before COVID-19, despite facing a higher baseline threat environment (active bird flu, record measles outbreaks, severe flu seasons).