Many infectious diseases spread quickly from person to person. This makes them fundamentally different to other health threats because the amplitude of the threat they pose can accelerate exponentially, forcing leaders to make very difficult decisions in a short space of time with imperfect information. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 illustrated clearly how leaders can reach very different conclusions. I will give examples of how the science of infectious disease dynamics can help reduce uncertainty when used to help with planning, responding and learning from pandemics. As the world transitions from low to high immunity against SARS-CoV-2 with as little health impact as possible, we have the opportunity to revise our plans to reduce greatly the impact of the next similar emergent virus. At the end of the talk, I will also discuss how we are prioritizing the use of data, analytics and surveillance in the science of improving our response.