WASHINGTON DC — U.S. states are forming health alliances and working directly with the World Health Organization in the absence of federal guidance, as a hantavirus outbreak unfolds across the country. President Donald Trump has initiated a move to withdraw the United States from the WHO, to which the U.S. contributes $130 million annually.

"From where I sit, the federal government is not going to play the role that is needed in the next pandemic, and so we are watching states step up," said Matthew Kavanaugh, director of the Georgetown global health policy center. Scientific models estimate a 50% chance of another pandemic as severe as Covid within the next 25 years.

Stephanie Psaki, former White House global health security coordinator, cautioned against complacency about the current outbreak. "Assuming everything goes well in containing this outbreak, which I hope it does, the takeaway from that should not be 'we're fine'." Psaki said. "We're not ready for this type of threat."

She framed hantavirus as one example of a recurring category of risk. "This is just one of many, many pathogens. These types of things will continue happening," she said. Psaki outlined the core functions she said a pandemic response system must perform: "Stop a threat from emerging, identify the threat quickly, contain the threat, have a way to respond to the threat and keep people alive and keep hospitals from getting overwhelmed."

Anthony Fauci, former chief medical adviser to the president, pointed to the online information environment as a barrier to public health response. "We're just being overwhelmed with misinformation online," Fauci said. "It's painful, but it's true that somebody on social media who's a trusted influencer will outflank any scientist who's trying to show you data, so you can't fight misinformation with data," he said. "You have to fight misinformation with figuring out a better way to communicate to people on a level that they understand. Otherwise you're always playing catch-up. And when you're playing catch-up, you're losing."