The federal government is taking “steps in the right direction” to help control this pandemic, but there have been many hard lessons learned, according to a new report from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
This is among 10 recommendations that address what AAMC views as systemic inadequacies in the nation’s COVID-19 response that can help advise policy makers on how to better prepare for the next pandemic.
The recommendations are:
- The White House must lead the charge and ensure coordination among departments and agencies.
- The federal government must engage industry and research universities at the outset, commit to purchasing needed supplies and therapeutics in advance.
- The federal government must ensure an effective supply chain for critical goods and materials.
- Congress must appropriate needed funding to meet public health needs.
- Federal and state governments must relax regulatory restrictions on clinical care during a national emergency.
- Both government and the private sector must invest in needed data infrastructure.
- Federal and state policies must increase supply and well-being of physicians and other health professionals.
- Congress must continue to commit to basic and clinical research.
- Federal government should expand and improve health insurance coverage.
- Stakeholders must commit to improving equity and patient-centered care through community engagement.
Current crisis ‘avoidable’
Although the Biden administration’s COVID-19 strategy is moving in the right direction, says Atul Grover, MD, PhD, executive director of the AAMC Research and Action Institute, the branch of the association that prepared the report, “the severity of this phase of the COVID-19 pandemic was avoidable.”
According to the report, only the federal government can provide the level of coordination that is needed across states and international borders to fight the virus successfully. “The response should not rely on a piecemeal approach that varies by locality and region.”
In the absence of clear federal leadership during the pandemic’s earlier phase, the report states, “key policies were either absent or conflicting across states, counties, and municipalities. Without federal direction and coordination, states were forced to compete against each other (and, sometimes, against the federal government) for supplies.”
As a recent Kaiser Health News report shows, the states are still falling short on the COVID-19 front: For example, at least 26 states have restricted the ability of their public health authorities to take action against COVID in various ways.
In an interview, William Schaffner, MD, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., agrees on the need for the federal government to lead the COVID fight.
Noting that the cooperation of states with each other and with the national government is voluntary, Dr. Schaffner asserted that “subcontracting [the COVID response] to the states doesn’t work. That results in chaos and a crazy quilt of responses that persists to this day.”