![](https://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/14d834_2682244443154fa3867d4d96335a9e88-mv2-scaled.jpg)
Creating a COVID-19 Commission on Public Health Misinformation
Summary
To better prepare for future public-health emergencies, the next president should establish several high-level COVID Commissions—modeled on the 9/11 Commission—to examine our nation’s response to the 2020 pandemic. One Commission should focus on public health communication and messaging.
The next president should task this Commission with assessing the information about the pandemic: what was made publicly available, how the information affected our societal response, and what should be done to limit the impact of false and dangerously misleading information moving forward.
The SIPRI chapter describes the nuclear weapon modernization programs underway in each nuclear-armed state and provides estimates for how many nuclear warheads each country possesses.
FAS researchers Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda with the Nuclear Information Project write in the new SIPRI Yearbook 2024, released today.
The total number of U.S. nuclear warheads are now estimated to include 1,770 deployed warheads, 1,938 reserved for operational forces. An additional 1,336 retired warheads are awaiting dismantlement, for a total inventory of 5,044 warheads.
A military depot in central Belarus has recently been upgraded with additional security perimeters and an access point that indicate it could be intended for housing Russian nuclear warheads for Belarus’ Russia-supplied Iskander missile launchers.