Comparative Systems Analysis of Liberia’s Disease Response to 2014-15 Ebola & 2020 Covid-19 and the US Covid-19 Response

This research is a system analysis that compares the COVID-19 pandemic both in the United States and Liberia to the 2014-15 Liberian Ebola outbreak, examining similarities and differences in national response efforts and timelines. Building on a thorough literature review of public health scholarship, as well as a statistical analysis of pandemic data disaggregated by country, this analysis helps identify key factors impacting response quality. This study highlights areas in which the 2020 Western response including in the US could have better learnt from recent pandemics in the global South like Ebola to mitigate contagion. Comparatively, Liberia’s national response in 2020 indicates how countries even with limited health infrastructure and resources are able to transform their systems as a result of learning from past pandemic experiences. Liberia responded from the exogenous shock of Ebola by developing new collective strategic action, which were reactivated when the 2020 crisis erupted. This proactive adaptation, theoretically termed ‘retrospective conditioning’, often consist of improved rapid governmental and societal reaction to a new pandemic threat, effectually minimizing the grave effects on vulnerable populations and the nation as a whole.