We Urgently Need a New National COVID-19 Response Plan

The recent Chicago public school crisis, collapse of Broadway theater in New York City, ongoing changes in NBA and NFL screening protocols for players, and extreme scarcity of rapid tests throughout the nation all serve as a deafening wake-up call for urgent revision of our national COVID-19 response plan. These and similar scenes of chaos and conflict over the reopening of American institutions and commerce reflect the absence of a coherent national plan that is responsive to the contagiousness of the Omicron variant. Central to this current failure is the need for a clear national definition of “public safety” that the American people can understand and buy into. Vague and impressionistic appeals to “safety” are riven by partisan divisions over real-world policy and implementation. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] First, we must fix this definition of safety as the necessary foundation to building a robust national plan. Second, our COVID-19 policies should not abruptly lurch from scientific study to study, changing availability of vital tools, and move from federal agency to agency. Rather policies must pragmatically respond to motivators of human behavior and to a coherent view of where the pandemic is headed. The new plan must face into current political realities.The best single predictor of Americans’ response to the pandemic has been their political ideology and partisanship. Polling throughout the pandemic has consistently re...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: news