As Covid grinds on, we must ask ourselves a question: after one million plus dead have we learned enough? It is clear that despite the death toll we have definitely not learned some things well enough. We have not learned that we must do something to address preventative health care for all Americans, including addressing disparities in access to care for racial and ethnic minorities. The future doesn’t look good. It is very possible that Covid is less like other forms of the flu and more like the common cold, meaning that people can become infected multiple times and still not develop immunity.
More focus needs to be brought to just how much public health failed and why. We need permanent changes and to give public health the funding it needs. Things like more money for nursing homes and RCF’s, an overhaul of how we fund rural hospitals, increases in staffing and funding for public health facilities, and programs to ensure that people at risk of diabetes are being screened before the development of disease. The best thing we can do to stop the high death toll for the next viral epidemic is to address epidemics like food deserts, obesity, and lack of access to primary care, now. We have it in our power to save lives by addressing these epidemics before we are faced with the next virus.
This is especially important because these long-term epidemics were some of the main drivers of inequitable outcomes for minorities. When people are in bad health generally or have multiple health problems to start with, they are unable to withstand disease. Lost in the debate over vaccines and new therapies is the number of Americans who lost their lives due to underlying medical problems. The consequences of our failure to address these issues is the most important lesson in how to advert such high death tolls in the future. Vaccines are wonderful tools, but they take time to develop and infrastructure to distribute. It is imperative to prevent.
We know another viral epidemic is coming. Humans are increasingly encroaching on wildlands. As roads open up wilderness and the bush meat and wild animal trades expand, there is more opportunity for animal viruses to make the evolutionary leap into humans, and then evolve human to human transmission. More coronaviruses are out there.
It is time to overhaul this nation’s public health structure–ensuring next time they are funded the way they need to be and that they are funded equitably. In this way we can be truly prepared. So what is stopping action? The Biden administration hasn’t really stepped up to the plate. This is perhaps forgivable considering that he can’t even get basic funding through congress, much less propose a sweeping overhaul of our public health system. Still, this work needs to be done, and in this election year, it ought to be a major campaign issue. We cannot afford to lose another million the next time around.
Progressive Without Apology 