The COVID-19 pandemic is causing record levels of infections and deaths. Ahead of the winter break, Georgia State University College of Law and School of Public Health, together with Emory University School of Law and Rollins School of Public Health, hosted the workshop “What Could Congress Do about the Pandemic by December 18, 2020?”
Academics, researchers and practitioners submitted proposals for actions Congress could take quickly to help save lives, reduce suffering and restore the economy. The proposals were reviewed and presented for discussion. Expert public health, health care and legal commentators provided feedback and facilitated questions from the public.
Proposals included targeting federal spending on specific pandemic mitigation efforts, protecting public transit workers and riders, providing access to vaccinations and treatment without cost sharing, improving trust in the FDA approval process, establishing a technology innovation incentive fund for personal protective equipment, improving ventilation in nursing homes, providing rapid at-home testing, expanding COVID-19 data collection and establishing a central data source at CDC. Policymakers have included elements of many of these proposals in strategies to address COVID-19 since the workshop.