Dangerous and economically disruptive viruses have been with us a long time and there is no reason to suppose they will not continue to cause havoc far into the future. Just take the last two decades as a snapshot. This pandemic was inevitable and there is no excuse for planning to have been almost entirely absent.
2002:
Between November 2002 and July 2003, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) spread rapidly from China to 37 other countries around the world, causing 775 human deaths with an economic loss of $40 billion.
2009
Early 2009, a new strain of H1N1 of porcine origin spread worldwide from Mexico. H1N1 was declared a flu pandemic by the World Health Organisation and this virus caused around 17,000 human deaths by early 2010.
2010
New variation of coronavirus emerges, MERS-CoV. The appearance of SARS-CoV in 2002 and MERS-CoV in 2012 has forced a change of perspective on this family of viruses since the pneumonias they have caused (SARS and MERS) have mortality rates of 10% and 30% respectively, which are much higher than other coronaviruses.
2019
As early as September 2019 a third new coronavirus, SARS-CoV2 emerged in Wuhan Hubei province, China. In February 2020, it was renamed as COVID-19 and declared pandemic by the World Health Organisation.
The IMF estimates the global cost of Covid will be a staggering 28 TRILLION dollars. The world cannot afford to be unprepared for the next pandemic.