On July 29, the Washington, D.C.-based Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), which represents 172 accredited U.S. and Canadian medical schools and more than 400 teaching hospitals and health systems, released an editorial on its website calling for a number of specific actions to be taken nationwide in order to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Entitled “A Road Map to Reset the Nation’s Approach to the Pandemic,” the editorial represents the AAMC’s effort to add its voice to the nationwide discussion around what to do about the coronavirus, which has to date infected at least 4.4 million people in the United States, and killed more than 150,000.
The editorial begins thus: “In just six months, nearly 150,000 Americans have lost their lives to COVID-19, with more than 4 million infected by the virus that causes it. Cases continue to rise at an alarming rate across much of the United States. If the nation does not change its course – and soon – deaths in the U.S. could well be in the multiples of hundreds of thousands.”
And, the association states, “The AAMC offers a road map to reset the nation’s response to the pandemic based on our understanding and expertise as doctors, scientists, and medical educators, as well as the work we have done to help our members respond on the front lines of patient care, testing, and medical research for effective treatments and vaccines. The road map identifies a set of nine evidence-based, commonsense actions the AAMC believes is essential to act on immediately, and two longer-term, larger-scale changes to improve the overall health of our nation.”
The nine immediate actions that the AAMC urges be taken are as follows:
1. Remedy critical supply and drug shortages.
2. Increase availability and accessibility of testing.
3. Establish national standards on face coverings.
4. Establish and enforce national criteria for local stay-at-home orders and reopening protocols.
5. Establish national criteria for K-12 school reopenings and convene a working group to study different approaches.
6. Immediately expand health insurance through COBRA.
7. Begin planning now to prioritize distribution of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.
8. Address and resolve healthcare inequities.
9. Inform, educate, and engage the public.
The AAMC editorial also called for policy and legislative leaders to “broaden health insurance,” and “strengthen the nation’s public health infrastructure.”
With regard to health insurance, the association wrote that “The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerabilities of the employer-sponsored health insurance system in which individuals who lose their jobs also lose their health insurance. The federal government should augment the nation’s system of health care coverage so that coverage is available regardless of employment status.” With regard to the national public health infrastructure, the association believes that “The U.S. public health infrastructure has been underfunded for decades at almost every level: national, state, and local. The great progress made in recent decades to control contagious diseases has made public health a lower priority in a time of constrained resources. Like an insurance policy, however, one is very glad to have that protection when there is a fire. In addition to helping in times of contagion, public health infrastructure also helps improve, and reduce disparities among, different groups’ life expectancies.”
What’s more, the association believes, “Public health at all levels should be better funded. It is the work of federal, state, and local governments to implement and prioritize policies and expenditures based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) professional guidance. Most public health actions will remain at the state level; however, given the financial pressures on state and local governments due to lost revenue in the pandemic-induced financial crisis, federal financial assistance will be necessary to allow states to perform the necessary steps to protect
