Franco Ordonez reports on NPR that two leading former federal health officials who served in recent Republican and Democratic administrations are spearheading a call for a $46 billion public health investment in a future coronavirus aid package in order to safely reopen the economy.
Andy Slavitt, former director of Medicare and Medicaid in the Obama administration, and Scott Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration chief for President Trump, say that Congress needs to devote funding to help states track down people who have been exposed to the coronavirus, and to offer resources to infected and exposed individuals who wish to self-isolate.
“The existing public health system is currently capable of providing only a fraction of the contact tracing and voluntary self-isolation capacity required to meet the COVID-19 challenge,” Slavitt and Gottlieb, along with a prominent group of public health officials and others, write in a letter to House and Senate leaders.