We’ll never fully solve this problem if we’re unwilling to look beyond our own borders and engage fully with the rest of the world. A disease that starts anywhere on the planet, can get on a plane to any city on earth within a few hours. We have to confront coronavirus everywhere. We should be leading a coordinated, global response, just as we did to the Ebola crisis, that draws on the incredible capability of the U.S. Agency for International Development and our State Department, to assist vulnerable nations in detecting and treating the coronavirus wherever it spreads.

We should be investing in rebuilding and strengthening the global health security agenda, which we launched during our administration, specifically to mobilize the world against the threats of new infectious diseases.

It can be hard to see the concrete value of this work when everything seem to be going well in the world. But by cutting our investments in global health, this administration has left us woefully unprepared for the crisis we now face. No president can promise to prevent future outbreaks. But I can promise you this. When I’m president, we will be better prepared, respond better and recover better. We’ll lead with science. We’ll listen to the experts. We’ll heed their advice. We’ll build American leadership and rebuild it, to rally the world to meet the global threats that we’re likely to face again.

And I’ll always tell you the truth. This is the responsibility of a president.