U.S. public health agencies remain underprepared for emerging infectious disease threats like Ebola and hantavirus as the country prepares for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
This lack of readiness creates a significant vulnerability as millions of visitors [4] are expected to travel across North America for the tournament. Experts said that gaps in surveillance and response capacity could hinder the ability to contain a sudden outbreak.
Six years after COVID-19 transformed daily life [1], assessments show that the U.S. health infrastructure has not fully recovered its capacity. According to a report from the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health, fewer than 50% of states are sufficiently prepared for a health emergency [2]. Only 20 states scored "high" on the annual readiness report [3].
Public health experts said that political polarization and public distrust have eroded the effectiveness of emergency responses. These social factors, combined with recent cuts to health infrastructure funding, have left critical gaps in how states monitor and react to new pathogens.
Federal and state agencies are tasked with managing these risks, but the current fragmented state of readiness complicates a unified response. The threat of diseases such as Ebola and hantavirus persists, requiring high levels of coordination that current data suggests is lacking across many jurisdictions.
The intersection of funding cuts and political instability has created a climate where public health is often sidelined. This systemic weakness is particularly concerning given the scale of international travel associated with the upcoming World Cup.
“Fewer than half of U.S. states are sufficiently prepared for a health emergency”
The current state of U.S. public health readiness suggests a failure to institutionalize the lessons learned from the 2020 pandemic. By allowing funding to lapse and ignoring the impact of political polarization on health compliance, the U.S. enters a period of high international traffic—specifically the 2026 World Cup—with a fragile defense system. This indicates that the primary barrier to pandemic preparedness is no longer a lack of medical knowledge, but a lack of political and financial will to maintain infrastructure during non-crisis periods.
