the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, there have been various criticisms that the COVID 19 response on growing tensions between the federal government’s response to the growing US COVID-19 epidemic and state officials, including governors, but healthcare workers on the front lines are expressing concern as well.
We have also seen it with contradictory actions between our local, county and state bureaucracies.
In a series of interviews, STAT News elicited feedback from healthcare workers across the country regarding the COVID-19 response, and many reportedly expressed frustration with both state and federal responses. Their major concerns included delays in implementing response activities (eg, social distancing), spread of misinformation about the current state of the epidemic and response, supply shortages (eg, personal protective equipment [PPE]), and poor testing availability and strategy. Many healthcare workers feel that insufficient response by government agencies has put them at elevated risk. Additionally, reports continue about the US government “seizing” supplies ordered by states and hospitals. US President Donald Trump and other US government officials have previously called on states and hospitals to acquire their own supplies; however, some orders placed by states and hospitals have reportedly been diverted to the US government, and there appears to be little or no insight into how the government is using or distributing them.
STAT News also published a commentary by Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Executive Publisher of Science, regarding the role of the US CDC in the COVID-19 response. The commentary laments the reduced public visibility and public engagement from CDC officials and calls for the CDC to assume the role that Americans, and indeed the world, has come to expect. Recently, the CDC has largely been replaced by the White House Coronavirus Task Force as the public-facing source for COVID-19 information from the US government, which has been criticized for its focus on political commentary and misinformation over factual information from health experts.
Following a statement on Tuesday by President Trump that the US government will “put a very powerful hold” US funding for the WHO in response to perceived missteps during the COVID-19 pandemic response, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for political leaders to “quarantine politicizing COVID.” He went on to warn that politicizing the pandemic over prioritizing appropriate response activities could lead to more deaths. Dr. Tedros did not explicitly refer to President Trump or the United States in his statement.