The most predictable disaster in the history of the human race
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8660249/bill-gates-spanish-flu-pandemic

Whether through the WHO or some other mechanism, most experts agree that the world needs some kind of emergency-response team for dangerous diseases. But no one knows quite how to set up that team. "That's what we’re lacking in the global system — a battalion of people in white helmets," says Klain. "But who will own it? Control it? Pay for it? Deploy it? Those are the tricky things."

This is in stark contrast to war, which is not necessarily more deadly to the human race, but is much better planned for. "When you talk about war," Gates says, "there are all these rules about how the government can seize various ships. But when an epidemic comes along, who is supposed to survey the private capacity and go out there and grab all these things?"

Look at what happened during Ebola, Gates continues. "Where was the equivalent of the military reserve, where you get on the phone and you said to people, Now come! And they had been trained, and they understood how to work together. People who want to volunteer, do we pay them? What do we do with them after they come back, when people might have this fear that they've been exposed? Are employers going to take them back? What are the quarantine rules? It was completely ad hoc."

This is what's so maddening about the modern fight with epidemic disease. Unlike in past eras, humanity has the tools it needs to protect itself. But global travel has far outpaced global governance — or even global disease response. Diseases move much faster than governments. "This is the hole in the global system," Klain says, and no one really knows how to fix it.