"what should we do when the next pandemic arrives?"

That depends entirely on what the pandemic looks like. Covid was an old person's disease. The elderly and the immuno-compromised were at significant risk. The middle aged (30-60) were essentially safe and those younger than 30 and particularly the kids, were effectively immune.
If such a virus arrives again, we should isolate those in danger but allow the rest to continue to live their lives, hopefully catching the disease and building societal herd immunity.

But not all viruses are like that. The Spanish flue for example, largely targeted the young 20-somethings for reasons I don't think anyone has worked out. The Hong Kong Flu of the 1970s had a different pattern again.

So the starting point is to identify the at risk groups. This can be done quite quickly. In the case of Covid, the outbreak started in February 2020 in the west, and by mid-March some had already correctly deduced its patterns. But the authorities panicked and went into lockdowns. That was the wrong call and is generally agreed as being something we'd not do again under the same circumstances.

So what to do? the main thing is to remain calm. We've been conditioned over the decades to think of mass deaths and societal breakdown. But remember that all thee pandemics are really just very bad flu and most people are either immune or quickly recover. The rush to panic is profound in government who don't want to be blamed for a single death and therefore want to over-react to be seen to be doing more than is necessary - even if it means invading civil liberties as happened with the covid lockdown

Hi mhaze,
"If such a virus arrives again, we should isolate those in danger but allow the rest to continue to live their lives, hopefully catching the disease and building societal herd immunity."
- What if it's a man-made virus and not a naturally occurring one?

"But not all viruses are like that. The Spanish flue for example, largely targeted the young 20-somethings for reasons I don't think anyone has worked out. The Hong Kong Flu of the 1970s had a different pattern again."
- Scientists are actively re-synthesizing these old viruses

http://thebulletin.org/2024/06/mit-researchers-ordered-and-combined-parts-of-the-1918-pandemic-influenza-virus-did-they-expose-a-security-flaw/

"So the starting point is to identify the at risk groups. This can be done quite quickly. In the case of Covid, the outbreak started in February 2020 in the west, and by mid-March some had already correctly deduced its patterns. But the authorities panicked and went into lockdowns. That was the wrong call and is generally agreed as being something we'd not do again under the same circumstances."
- I agreed with the lockdowns, not so much internally but externally.
We should've locked everyone out of the country, until such time as measures were in place to protect the vulnerable.

We should not have had quarantine in hotels with shared ventilation,
Put 1000 shipping containers with sliding doors and windows into a huge area away from populated areas; or portable buildings, even with a mobile tent hospital if necessary and protect those who need to be protected until we understand said virus enough to have the best plan in place if these people are to eventually become infected.

Personally, this is why 'unity in self sufficiency' is a must policy, just the same as the government should have huge factories that can build portable building assembly straight off a production line.
Not everything should be about profits.

Furthermore, I question the logic of introducing viruses deliberately.

Caliciviruses are a family of viruses that can infect a range of animals, including humans, and cause a variety of diseases. Some caliciviruses have been introduced to Australia and other countries for a variety of purposes, including:

Rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV)
This virus is also known as calicivirus and is used as a biological control to reduce the number of wild rabbits in Australia. The first strain, RHDV1, was released in 1996, and other strains have been released since. RHDV K5 is the latest strain and is only harmful to European rabbits

That depends entirely on what the pandemic looks like.
mhaze,
Precisely ! With Covid no-one had a clue yet the most clueless were the first to object to a common approach !
What have any of them contributed thus far to have the Nation reasonably ready for next episode ?
Have any facilities been established to help with basic isolation ? How many masks have been stored in readiness ?
What improvements have been worked on to public transport to reduce transmission ? The next Flu season is just around the corner, start stocking up transmission reducing articles & facilities !

http://x.com/ShadowofEzra/status/1872665139213918651
'Former Pfizer Vice President Dr. Mike Yeadon drops a bombshell, claiming that the mRNA COVID "vaccines" were deliberately engineered to harm, disable, and kill, with the ultimate goal of reducing human fertility.'

- Would you really want you and your kids to be the guinea pigs?
Are you really willing to ignore someone with those credentials?

Michael Yeadon is a British anti-vaccine activist[1][2][3] and retired pharmacologist who attracted media attention in 2020 and 2021 for making false or unfounded claims about the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.[4][2] The Times has described him as "a hero of Covid conspiracy theorists"[5] and "a key figure in the antivax movement".[6] Until 2011, he served as the chief scientist and vice-president of the allergy and respiratory research division of the drug company Pfizer, and is the co-founder and former CEO of the biotechnology company Ziarco.[7][8][9]