Experts plead for COVID-19 response to be led by public health officials

While the preparations for COVID-19’s rapid spread through the United States have been widely noted as lacking, public health experts now are calling for public health officials — not healthcare providers or politicians — to take charge of the crisis and guide both the response to it and communications surrounding it.

In a commentary published in The American Journal of Medicine last week, these experts reminded the world that it should be reacting to appropriate concerns, not driving its pandemic response through fear. Public health officials, they argued, need to be empowered to drive the response. In their view, even healthcare providers have seemed confused by present and future issues surrounding COVID-19, especially with the incomplete nature of evidence surrounding the disease.

“Based on the existing incomplete totality of evidence, it appears that coronavirus is comparable in communicability to influenza but with perhaps a 10 fold higher case fatality rate,” said lead author Dr. Charles Hennekens, First Sir Richard Doll Professor & Senior Academic Advisor to the Dean at Florida Atlantic University.

He and his co-authors noted that public health considerations should govern everything to do with the pandemic, rather than political expediency — and pointed out that if the epidemic continues to propagate, the sheer number of hospitalizations could paralyze the whole U.S. healthcare delivery system. For reference, they pointed to the flu season of 2018-2019, when 647,000 Americans were hospitalized and 61,200 died. If the novel coronavirus flourishes similarly, they said, it could kill some 612,000 and hospitalize millions more.

Collection, consolidation, and dissemination of data to all who need to know, along with strong surveillance measures, could make the difference in pandemic control, the authors argued. It has been established by past outbreaks of everything from influenza to smallpox. Proper public health responses have helped eradicate smallpox and prevent epidemics. Such responses are needed now, and the authors have pointed to Dr. Anthony Fauci as the man who should lead that response.

“We believe Anthony S. Fauci, MD, Director of the United States National Institute of Allergy and Disease, is the Babe Ruth of virology in general and influenza in particular,” the authors wrote. “His proven capacity and capability for collaborative expert leadership to guide the US and the world through this pandemic and to ensure our preparedness for the challenges ahead would be beneficial to all.”

However, a response is more than one man, the authors said, and going forward, a proper response would need to encompass collegial and collaborative measures throughout the United States and the world.