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vaccines. People who understand computer modeling would coordinate the work of modelers around the world. And the team could take the lead on creating and coordinating common responses, such as how and when to implement border closures, recommend mask use, and so on Diplomacy would inevitably be part of the job. After all, national and local leaders are the ones who understand the unique conditions in their country, who speak every local language, who know the key players, and to whom the public looks for leadership. People from GERM would have to work closely with them, making it clear that their job is to support, not supplant, local expertise. If GERM becomes--or even appears to be--something imposed from the outside, some countries will not follow its recommendations. Finally, the GERM team would be responsible for testing the world's monitor-andrespond system to find the weak spots. Among other things, they could run practice drills. Just as militaries do complex exercises where they simulate different conditions and see how well they respond, the GERM team could organize outbreak response exercises. Not war games, but germ games. This will be the team's most important role, and we'll return to it in much more detail in Chapter 7. *** The group I'm describing would be new, but not exactly unprecedented. It's based on a model I've seen work extremely well against another disease, one that we are achingly close to eradicating. Polio--a paralyzing disease that usually affects the legs but can, in rare cases, affect the diaphragm and make it impossible to breathe--has probably been around for thousands of years. (An Egyptian tablet from the sixteenth century BCE portrays a priest with what appears to be a