Decision making under deep uncertainty for pandemic policy planning

•Health policymaking in a pandemic is characterized by decision making under deep uncertainty.•Pandemic policy planning requires a shift from 'predict and act' to 'prepare, monitor, and adapt’ policymaking.•Monitoring in pandemic policy planning should be based on identifying pre-planned outcome measures and their trigger points, coupled to contingency measures.•Sufficient reserve capacity is a precondition for resilience of health care to respond adaptively.