US Epidemiologist: These are my proposals to tackle the Corona epidemic

Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), offers some suggestions that he believes would slow the spread of the Corona virus, the cause of Covid-19, which is sweeping his country and the world.

Frieden says in an article published in the New York Times that his proposals in this context start with a new investigation, and require that the White House have the will to listen to it.

The writer notes that, on January 26, at the end of a discussion on the epidemic that was sweeping China at the time, Dr. Nancy Missoner of CDC recommended that it be necessary to prepare for it as a pandemic.

He says that, like other Americans, he is horrified by the increasing number of daily deaths in his country due to this epidemic, and believes that the White House missed an opportunity last February to limit its spread, by not expanding the production of protective equipment, respirators, and tests.

Frieden believes that the administration of US President Donald Trump has failed to come to push Americans to exercise physical distance.

He says that it is the coherent national response that determines policy, and then drives governments to follow it, that the country is in a public health emergency, and that public health officials should show us the way forward.

Friedin urges the leading experts in these centers to direct the strategy that allows progress in the war against this virus.

He points out that these centers have more than 200 specialized laboratories and thousands of employees stationed around the world, and that their guidance and advice receive great confidence from health professionals in everything from newborn tests to vaccine schedules to brain injuries.

Friedin criticizes his country's senior public health experts, saying they are not taking control and are not responding at the most moment when the United States needs their guidance on the epidemic, which has led to failure to develop and implement a scientific plan to reopen the country safely.

He says that the epidemic - not politics - will determine the terms of the "competition" and leave us with three options, which is to continue to take cover in the home until there is a vaccine, which can take a year or more, or open the gates of activity and then face a repeated explosion of infection. , Or prepare aggressively and expand the capacity of our public health institutions so that we can gradually lift the restrictions and relieve activity pressure.

The best option
The author believes that the last option is the best, and that it requires the following:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is leading the world in efforts to investigate, understand and contain the work of the Curna virus.

The White House and many sectors of the federal government, commercial laboratories, and hospitals need to make tests more widely available.

- The need for an informed and reliable official spokesman to provide information regularly, not only about the number of tests but about the actual time from test to results, as it is now considered unacceptably slow in many areas.

- The need to take antibody tests, especially if people recovering from Covid-19 are immune from repeated infection and can work and travel safely.

The author believes that the process of controlling the epidemic is considered among the work of war intelligence, and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducts this monitoring better than any other agency in the world.

The author calls for continuing to investigate how to stop the virus and answer critical unresolved questions, such as whether children transmit infection in general, and information that will guide decisions about when to resume school opening.

The writer says that the world needs to hear simple and direct science instead of messages that mix hope, noise and hysteria.

It also calls for the provision of appropriate measures to prevent injury, such as hand sanitizers at the entrances of buildings, as well as doors and elevators that open and operate without the need for touch, and health care that contributes to reducing infections for patients and workers, and other measures, and significantly increased funding for epidemic detection and response activities It has inside and outside.

It also calls for the closure of the live animal markets in Asia and Africa, which are likely to produce this epidemic, and says that we must commit to global solidarity and accountability in the face of microbes.

The author asserts that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have the knowledge and experience necessary to limit the spread of Covid-19, but they need the power and voice that has been withheld in the past three months.

He concludes by saying that it is not too late to stop the devastation of health and the economy in the United States, but the administration must support and follow the directions of the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and must do so now.