The Emerging Pandemic of Coronavirus: The Urgent Need for Public Health Leadership

There is ample precedent for public health officials directing the containment of emerging pandemics. For example, in the early to mid-1960s Donald A. Henderson MD, Chief of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Virus Surveillance Program, began to work closely with Alexander D. Langmuir, MD, Director of the Epidemic Intelligence Service and Epidemiology Program at CDC. They first introduced the concept of surveillance and later applied rigorous and evidenced based public health principles and methodologies to the eradication of smallpox.