Right here’s what we must be doing:
Set up uniform requirements. Greater than 3,000 native and state public well being workplaces in the US typically function with incompatible knowledge techniques, and lack shared definitions of frequent knowledge classes. In different phrases, the techniques can’t talk. The federal authorities and the C.D.C. ought to set up a uniform community of complete public well being knowledge that helps native authorities keep forward of the subsequent virus and deploy assets to probably the most at-risk areas. Uniform knowledge requirements mixed with immediate assortment and evaluation of that knowledge and well timed reporting of the knowledge allows public well being officers to give attention to flare-ups and scale back the necessity for sweeping, polarizing and economically damaging mandates, like closing colleges and companies.
Diversify abilities and collaborate. The USA must put money into growing a brand new technology of public well being professionals steeped in three areas: techniques considering to plan throughout a number of disciplines, knowledge administration to enhance data movement, and efficient communication to counter misinformation. As we labored to trace the virus and response, we collaborated every day with a broad vary of consultants together with knowledge scientists, engineers, epidemiologists, consultants in regulation and coverage, communications strategists and extra. All these abilities are wanted to supply correct data that creates public belief. To perform this, governments, universities {and professional} societies should collaborate to create the demand, develop the expertise, proceed to innovate and maintain each other accountable.
Put money into the instruments we want. At-home testing was an enormous step ahead in our potential to handle this virus, and we applaud the Biden administration for getting these assessments to the general public. However and not using a plan to gather knowledge from at-home testing, we haven’t been capable of rely the outcomes. The federal authorities additionally by no means invested sufficient in constructing genomic sequencing capability to find out the genetic make-up of the virus and hold tempo with the emergence of recent mutations. This left an enormous hole in our understanding of fixing situations. And in lots of cases, already-strained well being care suppliers have been additional careworn throughout the pandemic by the time-consuming frustrations of relaying knowledge utilizing archaic know-how.
Well being safety is nationwide safety. It must be funded prefer it. When Hurricane Katrina uncovered how public security companies have been hamstrung by incompatible radio networks, as they have been in New York Metropolis on Sept. 11, 2001, Congress took motion, although it took years, investing billions to make emergency communications interoperable.
Let’s be taught the teachings of the pandemic. Many years of persistent underfunding of public well being companies should be reversed. Outdated illness surveillance techniques, knowledge sharing networks and laboratories should be modernized, and that requires important funding.
