> The main goal is to make it survivable, ie. akin to the flu, and not cause hospitals to get overrun like we have seen so many times around the world in the last year.
There is a secondary main goal, one that the world should have learned after SARS v1, MERS, or the swine flu: get rid of the conditions that infectious agents need to spread. There's a reason that pandemic events have exploded over the last two decades: we have way too many animals and humans in way too shitty conditions. This means, list not exhaustive:
- end mass farming of animals in conditions that require feeding them with reserve antibiotics, washing meat with chlorine or washing eggs in order to keep the produce at least somewhat safe to serve. Farm animals of all kind (meat, eggs, milk, fur) need space and quality food (thankfully we got... mostly rid of feeding carcasses after BSE). *Keeping the status quo is only going to serve us yet another pandemic*!
- end or massively restrict shipping around animals and animal products across the world to prevent the spread of diseases (like the African Swine Pest/Fever currently making its way across Europe, after wiping out the Chinese pig farms).
- generally, reduce the amount of meat in diets. The less animals are farmed for meat, the lower the risk that some bug jumps species.
- end mass working of people in conditions that are beneficial to spreading of infections agents: enough space, enough closed off space (=ban "open floor" and "cubicle farm" setups), mandatory sick leave, no exceptions, and a mandatory send-home order for employees showing symptoms of respiratory illness. It's not good if someone is forced to come into the office or a restaurant despite having a cough. Also, unsanitary conditions for worker accomodations should be banned (e.g. no "pack 10 dudes into a 8 m² room" as it's way too common on farms). Also, to reduce stress (and thus, increase immune system strength), work hours / weeks should be drastically cut: 4 or 6 hours a day, and four days a week.
- drastically reduce unnecessary traveling across the world. This includes a full ban of cruise ships (who have been often enough in the news as sailing norovirus incubators, not to mention their climate impact), but also incentivizing companies to use videocalls and electronic signatures in favor of flying staff across the oceans just to sign a contract and other similar absurdities.
Most of what I've listed should not only be done as pandemic prevention, but also to protect the climate. I know most of it sounds either expensive or "revolt provoking", yet there is no other scientifically viable choice.