Milestones: A voice for public health during the pandemic

A slow-motion tragedy unfolds

In July 2020, COVID-19 was surging, again, across the United States.

More than 100,000 Americans already had died of the disease. Experts predicted another 100,000 would die by November unless the country took stronger preventative action. Yet the nation’s response was hindered by the denial and distractions of the Trump administration, the timidity of too many other political leaders, and the impatience of too many Americans to reopen the economy and “get back to normal.”

The vast majority of health professionals knew, and many economists agreed, that the only way to restore the economy was to forcefully address the pandemic itself. Yet their voices were not being heard.

Shut down, start over, do it right

On July 17, PIRG released a letter to the Trump administration, members of Congress and state governors, telling officials “the best thing for the nation is not to reopen as quickly as possible, it’s to save as many lives as possible.” The letter urged officials to close non-essential businesses, limit restaurants to take-out, require masks, and encourage people to stay home.

More than 1,400 health professionals, including Ezekiel Emanuel, chair of the health policy department at the University of Pennsylvania school of medicine, would sign that letter. The letter earned attention on The Rachel Maddow Show and in Forbes, among many other media outlets.

Misinformation and polarization conspired to keep the country’s response to the pandemic scattered and ineffectual. But by early September, 10 states had paused or rolled back reopening and six had established or expanded mask mandates. PIRG continued to make the case for a recovery that put public health first through the fall and winter, until at last vaccines were tested, approved and rolled out to the public.

To help health professionals better communicate information about the vaccines, on Jan. 19, 2021, along with Doctors for America, we brought together a panel of infectious disease experts for a public forum. Dr. Saad Omer, a vaccinologist, infectious disease specialist and director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, spoke on the panel.

“The first thing is an enabling environment for vaccination. So before you communicate, when you go to a vaccination place, are you treated with kindness, understanding, respect, ease?” he said during the panel. “The other thing is: Is the information clear? Is it accessible? So before we get to persuasion, just the basic information — and we are in an information deficit scenario even with health care providers.”

When the ‘right to repair’ is a matter of life-or-death

It was a nightmare scenario.

As ICU beds filled with COVID-19 patients in the early stages of the pandemic, biomedical technicians — or biomeds — across the country, tasked with maintaining hospitals’ medical equipment, found themselves unable to repair broken ventilators and other life-saving tools.

Many biomeds lacked access to manuals or the ability to run diagnostics or read error logs. These barriers were there for a reason: because they allowed equipment manufacturers to maintain control over the means of repair.

In normal times, these restrictions would be senseless, costly in terms of both dollars and human health. During a pandemic, they were unacceptable.

PIRG’s Kevin O’Reilly reached out to hundreds of biomeds. Eight in 10 reported having equipment on-site that they could not service because of restricted access. More than 300 signed on to our letter to Congress calling for action to stop manufacturers from withholding the means to repair medical equipment. Nearly 45,000 PIRG members and supporters signed our petition calling for action.

In response, three major companies made more service materials available — a change that we hope saved lives during the pandemic and one that will make it easier to save more lives in the years to come.

About this series: PIRG and The Public Interest Network have achieved much more than we can cover on this page. You can find more milestones of our work on public health below. You can also explore an interactive timeline featuring more of our network’s public health milestones.