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published by Wendy M. Bamberg, MD
In my 15-year career in public health, it never crossed my mind that we would ever be in a position where the US would have such difficulty responding to a pandemic simply because we as a country were unwilling to follow the science.
I trained at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the Epidemic Intelligence Service and worked in communicable diseases at a state public health agency for most of my career, and I know well the incredible scientific expertise at CDC and the state and local governments.
Public health has prepared for a pandemic for decades. We knew it would happen sooner or later. But I never could have imagined that we would be in the position we are in right now in the US. Trust in our public health agencies has unduly been eroded, our scientists are undervalued, and non-experts are dangerously placed in high-level advisory positions.
No longer employed by a government agency, I am able to speak out, and I feel that I must add my voice to the growing number of scientists speaking out.
I do so in support of my colleagues, dedicated scientists who work in the public health field, who do not have the luxury of speaking out themselves. Now, amid a devastating pandemic (devastating to our health, our mental health, and our financial health), we must have leaders that prioritize what science is telling us.
A year ago, I started my own consulting practice to help healthcare settings prevent infections. Four months later, I found myself in a new role – epidemiologist and physician consultant to any type of organization and business, using scientifically sound infection control practices to prevent COVID-19 transmission and help them open as safely as possible.
I help businesses and organizations stay open.
To keep our society open, we must follow the science, and science must be free of all political bias.
The science is clear that this respiratory virus can be controlled when face coverings are worn; when we avoid close contact, crowds, and crowded spaces; when we wash or sanitize our hands; and when we identify cases, trace the contacts, and adhere to isolation (separation of the sick from the well) and quarantine (separation of the exposed from the unexposed).
As a scientist, a public health and infectious diseases physician, and an epidemiologist, I cannot describe the frustration at knowing exactly what we need to do to and watching in real time the chaos, flailing, and lack of ability to follow even the most basic infection control measures at political events and government locations.
I have yelled at my phone and the television more times than I can count.
We are in desperate need of leaders who champion science and who use data to support policy – not the other way around. Scientific publications and guidance documents should inform decisions made by political leaders, rather than being modified based on politics.
We need our federal leaders to apply the science, including methods developed by behavioral scientists and backed by evidence to change the course of the behavior across the US.
We know that even small measures demonstrated consistently by people in leadership positions can make an enormous difference in people’s behavior, and our behavior is the key to changing the course of this pandemic.
Leaders must be strong advocates for widespread mask use, and this should be championed unequivocally. Gatherings, when they cannot be postponed, should require mask use and demonstrate clear social distancing protocols; leaders should promote practices in their own gatherings that provide an example. Gatherings should be held outdoors whenever possible, and outdoor gatherings should still include masks and distancing.
When someone is identified with COVID-19, the public health steps are clear. The person with COVID-19 should be isolated from others to avoid transmission to someone else; only when at least 10 days have passed (and in some cases 20 days), there has been no fever for 24 hours without fever-reducing medicines (steroids are fever-reducing medicines), and when symptoms are getting better, should this person go back into public spaces.
Contacts should be immediately identified by trained public health professionals who are skilled in this work, and exposed contacts should be quarantined, away from others, for the full 14 days.
If leaders ignore these steps, the job of public health becomes exponentially harder.
Currently, the US is on track to almost double the number of deaths in the US by January 1; projections show more than 360,000 people will die of COVID-19 given the current trajectory, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
Worsening case and death rates move us backward to a place where we might not have any other choice to control the virus except targeted or widespread shutdowns. We can change this now.
We already know exactly how to beat back this pandemic, how to keep our economy going, how to return to school safely, and how to have our lives back.
We must use the science and apply the methods to our daily lives to decrease the transmission of COVID-19; we do not need to stop our lives entirely, only modify them. We can get there.
That does not mean we know everything about this virus, and in the coming weeks and months we are likely to learn a lot more that will help scientists develop other ways to respond to COVID-19.
Current and future knowledge will need to be applied to retrieve our society. We need our federal leaders to apply the known science to safely restore our society.
The biggest wall standing in our way is the failure of our leadership.
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