Op/ed: Time for a ‘Uniform’ Response to COVID-19

As the United States struggles to ramp up its response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, there’s one thing it hasn’t done yet—fully mobilize its uniformed, frontline troops in the war against the disease.

In an editorial today in Stat News, Dr. Boris Lushniak, dean of the School of Public Health and former acting U.S. Surgeon General, joins Georgetown University medical student Andrew B. Meshnick and Dr. Brian J. Miller, a Washington, D.C. physician working in a coronavirus screening clinic, in calling on the Trump administration to activate and deploy the entire uniformed service of the U.S. Public Health Service to fight the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Controlling a pandemic like Covid-19 requires both the intervention of government agencies and changes in the lives of ordinary Americans.

One thing the federal government should do, but hasn’t, is fully deploy the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (USPHS). Not only can the Corps support health systems in rapidly scaling medical care, it can also advise state governments on the judicious use of state police powers to help slow the spread of the virus and limit economic damage.

The Corps is the world’s only national uniformed service devoted to protecting, promoting, and advancing the health and safety of a nation. It has more than 6,300 officers—physicians, nurses, pharmacists, engineers and more. Under normal circumstances, the Corps’ commissioned officers work side by side with their civilian counterparts in all aspects of public health at government agencies, from direct patient care to providing policy and administrative services.

Read the rest in Stat.