The pandemic has forced companies and governments to relearn some basic lessons. In this case, the three “Rs” are resilience, reshoring and repurposing. Institutions everywhere are examining how prepared they are for the worst. The answer for all has been: not very. The early scramble for national supplies of personal protective equipment as governments realised they did not have enough to cope with the scale of the health emergency was followed by fears over a shortage of critical medicines and key ingredients. The current focus is on securing access to a potential vaccine, with the US government on Friday agreeing a $2.1bn deal with Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline to buy 100m doses.
More than any other health or economic crisis in recent years, coronavirus has exposed the developed world’s reliance on imports and the fragility of long global supply chains. Self-sufficiency is the new mantra. The UK government has launched Project Defend to ensure the country retains access to critical goods while diversifying its trading relationships. In France, President Emmanuel Macron is exploring bringing home the manufacture of key medicines and has pledged to reshore paracetamol within three years.