Former members of President Joe Biden’s transition team call for a new long-term strategy that foresees a world where people learn to live with the novel coronavirus
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, oncologist, medical ethicist, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania who advised former President Barack Obama, is the driving force behind the effort.
Experts suggest that the Biden government take a broader view of the pandemic and acknowledge that the virus will not go away, and they have raised concerns about a “perpetual state of emergency” in response to further surges like the highly contagious variant of Omicron
“From a macro perspective, it feels like we’re always fighting yesterday’s crisis and not necessarily thinking about what to do today to prepare for what’s next,” said one author, Dr. Luciana Borio, of the New York Times. Former Acting Scientific Director of the U. Food and Drug Administration.
All people in the United States should have access to inexpensive testing, they added. Plans to purchase 500 million rapid tests are not enough for “full, real-time digital” data collection by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They also suggested giving the vaccines through aerosols, nasal patches, or skin patches.
Borio expressed frustration that no federal system links testing to treatment so that high-risk people can get instant prescriptions for new antiviral drugs.
Biden had launched a pandemic strategy and recently a winter strategy when he took office, the Times reported.
A first step could be to remove the tired old public health categories and focus on the added risk of all respiratory infections, the experts suggested. Figuring out what hospital admissions and death rates will cripple hospitals could lead to a metric of when emergency response should be taken. they added.
“The government had a strategic plan a year ago and they implemented it very well by June, with many people vaccinated, and they have reduced the number of cases with great success,” Emanuel told the Times. COVID, we need to change our understanding of what a success is and what goal we are aiming for.
