How broken China-US relations put the world’s health at risk

The breakdown in relations between the US and China is putting the entire world at risk when the next pandemic strikes.

For 40 years, the two superpowers co-operated on health and bioscience, benefitting the global community, before the relationship began to falter not long before COVID-19 swept through the world. Poor relations could impede planning for the next pandemic.

The world has a lot to lose if scientific collaboration splits into camps. It isn’t only Chinese scientific progress that will slow down. Western scientists will lose some of their best collaborators and access to important data sources, especially as China is one of many sources of new viruses.