There is finally a light at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic tunnel, thanks to a historic vaccine development effort. What will it take to bring us out of this pandemic, and how can we do it as rapidly and smoothly as possible?
Last week, we convened experts for a panel discussion where they detailed the devastating nature of this pandemic, moving vaccines out of production facilities and into arms, New York’s vaccination efforts, ensuring equitable distribution, and charting a path back to ‘normalcy.’ Watch the full video below and read on for highlights ...
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Excerpt: This pandemic has been especially brutal in part because our public health systems were not prepared for an emergency of this magnitude.
“I think one [challenge] is that unfortunately we did not learn the lessons of the past and we were not ready to respond to what many of us knew would inevitably come along, which is another pandemic caused by a virus,” explained Dr. El-Sadr. “We had essentially dismantled some of the structures and the workforce that has traditionally been very involved in terms of trying to predict these pandemics as well as trying to respond to them.”
“Another aspect is the underfunding, and almost a deterioration, of our public health systems,” she continued. “We have let them wither over the past decades for a very simple reason: people often don’t appreciate what public health does. Public health is largely about prevention, and nobody appreciates prevention. There’s much more of a sense of appreciation for healthcare in general, rather than public health. I think also at the same time, there’s been a huge gap in our capabilities to implement a variety of different interventions, whether it be in testing or now the rollout of the vaccine.” ...
