Top federal health officials told lawmakers Tuesday that the United States needs a more unified national response and funding for public health if the country faces another pandemic.
The United States now reports nearly 40,000 new cases of coronavirus each day, almost double the number of about 22,800 in mid-May, largely due to outbreaks in various southern and western states.
Addressing the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told lawmakers that the United States “is not in full control” of the pandemic of coronavirus.
If the country were to experience another pandemic in the future, officials would have to do a better job of responding to the outbreak “in a coordinated manner” rather than allowing disparate responses from different regions of the country, Fauci said during a hearing.
“We have to do it in a very coordinated way because we are all in this together,” he said.
Going forward, Fauci added that he would like to “cement in our minds” that outbreaks can occur and when they do, officials must deal with them in a “very aggressive and proactive” manner.
“We cannot forget that what was thought to be unimaginable turned out to be the reality we are facing now,” Fauci said.
His comments came after Tennessee Republican President Lamar Alexander asked health officials how the nation could better prepare for a future pandemic.
According to Johns Hopkins University data, the US has reported the most coronavirus infections of any country in the world, accounting for about a quarter of the more than 10.4 million cases in the world. Lamar said he recently published his own suggestions in a white paper, “Preparing for the Next Pandemic,” earlier this month.
Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that now is the time to make further investments in the nation’s public health infrastructure at the local, territorial, tribal, state and federal levels.
“When it comes to threats to public health, our nation needs to be over-prepared, not over-prepared,” said Redfield.
He said the United States has invested little in “core public health capabilities” for decades, including data monitoring, its workforce and emergency response capabilities.
Redfield previously told lawmakers in March that lack of funds has hampered the federal government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, specifically when it comes to early diagnostic tests.
“We have really been hit with this simple virus, and I think at the end of the day it is going to cost our nation billions of dollars, and I think we have a moment in time when I think people are in tune,” he said. Redfield. during Tuesday’s hearing.
Admiral Brett Giroir, undersecretary for Health and Human Services, said officials did not have accurate data at the start of the outbreak on how many ventilators were in use, how many tests were available, or how many cases were reported in the U.S.
“I am talking about the entire infrastructure of walnut soup that we need to make decisions,” he said. “That data is needed to make decisions and allocate resources. And now that we’ve built this on the go, but we absolutely have to invest in that.”
Giroir warned lawmakers that other preventive procedures, such as cancer screenings and vaccines, fell dramatically during the nation’s Covid-19 response, posing a threat to the health system. He added that the United States must continue to focus on the health disparities that have led to higher death rates for blacks and Hispanics.
Long-standing health and social inequalities have put racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk for serious coronavirus disease, as seen in the highest rates of hospitalizations and deaths, according to the CDC.
“If we were all healthier in this country, if we invested in hypertension, obesity, diabetes, all the things that could improve overall health, we wouldn’t see so many horrible results in any pandemic,” he said.
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