Serious measures to counter the threat of COVID-19 have been taken, including the declaration of a national emergency in the US, restricting travel internationally, and instituting social distancing domestically. National health authorities have given the green light to fast-tracking the development of test kits, a vaccine and of retroviral medication that is effective against COVID-19. The public-private partnerships that have been struck, as well as federal and local collaboration, are reassuring. The Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates to near zero and the federal government is mobilizing $1 trillion to shore up major industries, small businesses and to fund tax breaks to individuals. The military is shoring up floating hospitals off major coastal cities in New York and California, where higher rates of confirmed cases already exist. These are all great steps. Producing sufficient hospital-grade respirators and protective gear for medical personnel to meet the predicted demand remains a challenge. Enacting war-time measures to dedicate manufacturing sites for the production of the equipment needed to fight this war against COVID-19 cannot come too soon. While the US administration and the private sector are soldering on, citizen awareness and responsibility is equally important if we are to curb the spread of this highly contagious virus. Self-discipline is required of all, and adhering to advisories and directives by local or national health authorities is a must. It is imperative to bridge communication gaps, drop stiff language from all quarters and harness the relevant knowledge of all that may have acquired it, irrespective of which country they live in. Michael Hage A week ago, COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic and every country on the planet found itself obliged to marshal its resources and begin taking herculean measures to raise its preparedness level to face the ominous threat created by COVID-19. Some countries that were hit earlier by the coronavirus have been striving to mitigate the storm for much longer. Achieving the goal of “flattening the curve” — the product of limiting and delaying the spread of COVID-19 with a view to allowing existing medical facilities and personnel to attend to those infected with the virus and to buy much-needed time to develop the long-awaited vaccine and drugs — remains a daunting task. Despite the relaxed regulations and the abundance of funds now being made available to specialized medical labs and research facilities in the US, the shortest way to ensure that the curve is flattened might be through stronger collaboration between these entities and their counterparts in other countries. The latter’s medical professionals have been — some for several months — tackling this virus and they may possess useful information on patient reactions and other critical data from experiments they have attempted in developing a vaccine and other medications to treat COVID-19 cases. Now is not the time to reinvent the wheel. If time is of the essence, and it is, then it is imperative to bridge communication gaps, drop stiff language from all quarters and harness the relevant knowledge of all that may have acquired it, irrespective of which country they live in, to contribute to the effort of quickly developing a vaccine and retroviral medication to rid humanity of this pandemic. As we have been rudely reminded by the eruption of COVID-19, no nation is an island. Michael Hage is President and CEO of American Innovation for International Development, Inc. Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News" point-of-view