Editor’s note: Brian C. Castrucci is an epidemiologist, public health worker, and president and CEO of the De Beaumont Foundation. Frank Luntz is a Republican pollster and communications advisor. The views expressed in this commentary are their own. Read more opinion on CNN.
CNN
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Again, our country is monitoring potential public health threats. And if recent history is any indication, many Americans won’t pay attention until people start dying. And those who are paying attention already have many questions about what to do and how worried they should be.
de Beaumont Foundation
Brian C. Castrucci
Provided by: Frank Lantz
Frank Luntz
The H5N1 avian influenza virus strain has infected wild birds, poultry, and livestock around the world, and traces of apparently harmless inactive virus have been detected in some samples of the U.S. milk supply.Let’s emphasize this It is not a major threat to humanity at this time. But we cannot let our guard down and must effectively communicate what we know.
You might think we’ve learned from the mistakes we made during the COVID-19 pandemic and not made them again, but that would be wishful thinking.
The U.S. government has invested $18 billion in developing coronavirus vaccines that have saved countless lives. With this level of financial support, the science, manufacturing, and acquisition proved to be the easy part. Getting people to get vaccinated has been much more difficult. The public encountered confusion and contradictory information, as well as a lot of unnecessary jargon that obscured both threats and solutions.
Communication around H5N1 is already off to a rocky start.
Statements from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. On May 1, the Department of Agriculture announced that the virus was mutating relatively rapidly. The next day, CDC scientists told STAT that the mutation did not raise immediate concerns about potential risks to humans.
Six days later, the FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said the federal government is preparing for bird flu to infect humans, but acknowledges it is unlikely humans will be infected with the virus. Further confusing the conversation is that many epidemiologists and doctors are competing for media attention, predicting different outcomes and scenarios.
Communication in uncertain situations is difficult. No one knows what this virus will do next. The federal government needs to adjust its messaging, use plain language that people can understand, promote reliable sources of information, and prepare community leaders to speak out thoughtfully about this potential threat.
It is no exaggeration to say that during a national health emergency, polarization and division can cost lives. Through focus groups and national polling conducted at the de Beaumont Foundation, we know that Americans remain divided in their perceptions of COVID-19. But we have identified something that unites the country. It’s both obvious and useful. No one wants to get sick, no one wants to die, and everyone wants their families to be safe. The people are clear about this. Politicians should not prioritize personal ideology or partisan politics over public safety.
As we discuss the possibility of a new pandemic, there are some things we can do to increase preparedness and strengthen our efforts to keep people safe.
First, we need a bipartisan plan to address the huge threat of misinformation and misleading information. We need new strategies to provide the public with accurate, jargon-free and timely information from scientists, political leaders of all parties, and business and religious leaders. And these strategies must effectively combat misinformation and rumors. We must now build a network of diverse spokespeople who can reach out to a similarly diverse America. Health professionals also need training to communicate more effectively, especially during times of uncertainty.
Second, improving indoor air quality must become a national priority. The experience with Covid-19 has shown us that improving ventilation and filtration is critical to reducing transmission and slowing community transmission. Like Covid-19, the H5N1 virus can spread through the air we breathe. But more than four years after the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic began, progress toward improving indoor air quality has been slow.
Just as the federal government built thousands of miles of roads after the Great Depression, a similar bipartisan effort of federal leadership and funding is needed to make improving indoor air quality a national priority. Is required. We need to start with the schools, businesses, and food manufacturing plants that are essential to the continued operation of our nation. At the state and local level, updating building codes and corresponding enforcement can set new standards for air quality that can directly impact health.
Nothing is more important to our long-term health and safety than the air we breathe. This is not a partisan issue, it’s an American issue that requires coordinated, collective, bipartisan action. Improving indoor air quality could reduce indoor virus transmission during future pandemics, potentially reducing or avoiding the need for school and business closures and mask mandates that have become all too familiar with COVID-19.
Third, ensuring the rest of us have what we need when we need it: restaurant staff, childcare workers, grocery store workers, truck drivers, and now dairy workers. We need to enact protections for the groups of essential workers that are available. they. We may call them “essential,” but many of these workers work low-wage jobs without paid sick leave or health insurance benefits, and some are Some people may be working illegally.
Dairy worker reporting of influenza-like illness is an important step in our prevention efforts. How can we expect if we report it, when we might not work, not get paid, not feed our children, not pay rent, or face deportation? The USDA is securing compensation for dairy farms that have lost milk production due to the virus, but it is also doing more for the people working on the farms than just providing personal protective equipment (PPE). I wonder if there is one?
Policies that can protect these workers and their families include emergency paid sick leave, federal income guarantees for those who report sick, and immediate access to health insurance. It will make the country safer and it’s the right thing to do.
Even if we act on these three priorities, in many important respects we will be even less prepared for a pandemic than we were in 2020.
State and local public health workers have not been overstretched and are understaffed by at least 80,000 people, de Beaumont said. Further staffing shortages are likely due to the large turnover of public health workers in the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to KFF, pediatric vaccination rates have declined during the pandemic due to a significant drop in confidence in vaccine safety, with the highest childhood vaccine exemption rate ever in the United States as of 2023. It was the lowest level in 10 years. , according to the CDC.
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Americans have low trust in the institutions we rely on to investigate, contain, and defeat disease outbreaks. In a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, only 16% of Americans said they trust the federal government all or most of the time. And a 2023 study published in the journal Health Affairs showed that as many as a quarter of Americans do not trust the CDC’s health recommendations.
Health and science have become so politicized and polarized that many Americans have lost faith and confidence in their own scientists and medical professionals, even though they remain the envy of the world. I am.
This is a troubling disconnect, especially if you believe, like the rest of us, that frontline public health workers are dedicated professionals who have done heroic work saving lives and protecting health during a devastating pandemic.
Bird flu may not become the next national public health emergency, but we cannot sit back and wait for the results. The best case scenario is that we are well prepared and do not have We have a deadly national crisis. This is a goal that should be embraced across all political ideologies and party lines. If our nation can unite around the principle that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, then we will be better prepared for the next threat, whenever and wherever it may be.
