The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has published an assessment showing that annual investment of about USD 7.1 billion, or USD 5.9 per capita in purchasing power parity terms, is needed to strengthen pandemic preparedness and response across OECD countries. Its modelling indicates that, without mitigation, five pandemic scenarios could exhaust critical care capacity within one to two months and reduce gross domestic product by 2.7% to 16.2% over nine months. Mortality could range from more than 1% of the population in a coronavirus-like outbreak to about 20% in the most extreme measles-like scenario. Early, layered non-pharmaceutical interventions offer the strongest balance between health and economic outcomes. Community infection prevention and control measures combined with voluntary quarantines could avert at least 40% of deaths, while adding teleworking, domestic travel limits and mandatory quarantines could prevent most deaths and generally avoid school closures, international travel restrictions and lockdowns. By contrast, lockdowns used alone would be less effective than timely layered measures and could cause GDP declines of 11.7% to 28.9%. Of the estimated OECD investment need, about USD 4.4 billion annually would support national stockpiles of personal protective equipment and hygiene supplies, while wastewater surveillance would typically cost less than USD 1 per person each year and could enable earlier, more targeted interventions.

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