Category Archives: National Emergency

The pandemic shaping the future

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The world that emerges from the coronavirus pandemic will be fundamentally different, Axios Future correspondent Bryan Walsh writes.

  • Why it matters: This crisis may prove to be as significant as the 2008 financial meltdown or even 9/11.
  • So the choices that businesses and governments are making now will have enormous social and economic ramifications.

The intrigue: U.S. health and government officials are facing the epidemiological equivalent of the “fog of war,” worsened by a massive American failure to act on weeks of warnings as the virus spread in China.

  • The Trump administration declared a national emergency yesterday, seven weeks after the first U.S. case was announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • By failing to rapidly scale up testing, U.S. officials have added an additional — and partly unnecessary — layer of uncertainty about how to respond.
  • Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina calls it “the most daunting virus that we’ve contended with in half a century or more.”

Flashback: As recently as the 1918 influenza pandemic, scientists lacked the ability to rapidly respond to an infectious disease outbreak.

  • Today, scientists can sequence a virus in days, develop rapid tests that can determine infection before obvious symptoms, and use complex mathematical models to predict future spread.

What we’ll find out in coming days:

  • The actual fatality rate of the virus.
  • How contagious it is, and the precise role that children — who seem outwardly unaffected by the disease — may play in transmission.
  • If the outbreak will naturally slow down when the weather warms, as tends to happen with influenza.

What’s next: For now, distance becomes the first line of defense. Schools and companies are shifting online — with potential consequences.

  • If companies are able to function relatively well with a largely remote workforce, expect lower levels of business travel.
  • After decades of emphasizing the efficiency of supply chains — which often meant complex international linkages and just-in-time inventories — businesses will look to build resilient supply chains.

The bottom line: The mobility — of people, capital and products — that we’ve taken for granted may not outlast the virus.

 

 

 

 

Confronting a national emergency over coronavirus

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Coronavirus, Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), Emergency Preparedness, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infectious Virus, National Emergency, National Institute of Health (NIH), Recession, Rural Health, Rural Hospital, Safety Net Hospitals, Safety-Net Providers, Sick Leave, Social Distancing, Telemedicine • Leave a comment

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President Trump declared a national emergency today, in response to the growing spread of coronavirus across the country. The administration had come under sharp criticism for its sluggish response to the coronavirus crisis, in particular the widespread shortage of tests. Dr. Antony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Health’s infectious disease branch, told Congress on Thursday that the government’s response on testing was “not really geared to what we need right now…That’s a failing. Let’s admit it.”

In response, the administration today announced a series of emergency steps to increase testing capacity, turning to private labs to support the effort. The emergency status frees up $50B in federal emergency funding. Trump also announced that the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary will be able to waive regulations around telemedicine licensing, critical access hospital bed requirements and length of stay, and other measures to provide hospitals with added flexibility. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have negotiated a sweeping aid package that would strengthen safety net programs, and offer sick leave for American workers affected by the virus.

Meanwhile, the American economy likely entered a recession, as consumers continued to pull back on spending on airline travel, entertainment, and other discretionary areas, while financial markets experienced the worst one-day drop in more than 30 years. Many school districts and universities shut down and announced plans to convert to online instruction for the foreseeable future. Employers imposed broad travel restrictions on their employees, moved to teleworking where possible, and even began to lay off workers as demand for services cratered. Shoppers stocked up on staples, cleaning supplies, and (inexplicably) toilet paper, as shelves ran bare in many stores.

Epidemiologists and disease experts urged broad adoption of “social distancing”, restricting large gatherings and reducing the ability of the virus to spread person-to-person. The objective: “flattening the curve” of transmission, so that the healthcare delivery system does not become overwhelmed as the virus spreads exponentially.