Jeneen Interlandi writes for The New York Times on why the US, the wealthiest country in the world, cannot effectively respond to the coronavirus pandemic. We need a strong public health system, which we are sorely lacking at the moment.
The US fails in so many ways on the public health front. Medical workers do not have the personal protective equipment they need. We don’t have enough hospital beds. We can’t test people broadly or diagnose cases quickly. Government does not have the data or capacity to track the spread of the virus. And, there is no consistent message at the federal level about what Americans should be doing.
A hundred years ago, we were on a path to a strong public health system. And over the course of the last century, we were able to control most infectious disease outbreaks relatively quickly. We passed laws to protect our food, air and water. Life expectancy rose significantly from 50 years to almost 80 years.
By the beginning of the 21st century, people seemed to forget that epidemics can happen and that health is a social concern as much if not more than a personal issue. We stopped spending significant money on public health. Almost one in four public health workers lost their jobs in the last 12 years.
The result: Measles and syphilis are back. More teenagers are smoking. And more bacteria and lead contaminate our food and water supplies.
Of course, if we invested in it, we could have a public health system in which we had real-time data collected from laboratories and hospitals in a single place, enough PPE, more hospital beds, an understanding of where resources need deploying and more. We just haven’t set it up.
Last year, a group of public health organizations asked the federal government for $1 billion to improve our nation’s public health data infrastructure. They got $50 million. Recently, they received another $500 million. But, they need another $5.4 billion to build a strong infrastructure. And, the money needs to be distributed equitably. We now know that people of color are more likely to die from COVID-19 than white Americans.
Science, not politics, should be guiding decision-making. We need public health for all, along with Medicare for all, if we want to be able to address the next pandemic effectively. We also need to recognize that profit-driven health care will not get us low-cost ventilators or vaccines. Without these resources, the global economy could sink.
Health can no longer be treated as an individual choice. To protect our health and wellbeing, we need to act as a nation.
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