Introduction

The Covid-19 pandemic brought emergency preparedness into the spotlight. In an unprecedented era of history, we’ve all had to grapple with what national and individual preparedness means in our post pandemic world. How do we evaluate the mistakes our country made during the pandemic and make changes to our emergency responses in the future? It’s a good question.

 

Let’s look at some real-time actions that American organizations are taking to implement stronger emergency preparedness in the days ahead.

 

The PREVENT Pandemics Act

The first thing we’ll examine is the PREVENT Pandemics act. The PREVENT Pandemics Act stands for “Prepare for and Respond to Existing Viruses, Emerging New Threats, and Pandemics Act.”¹

 

This bipartisan legislation examines the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, how we as a nation have failed, and what leadership can do to equip America for future health emergencies. It’s safe to say that after the nightmarish effects of the past few years, none of us want to live through another pandemic. It fractured families. Devastated the economy. Isolated communities. Closed businesses. Overwhelmed health care workers. Killed over a million Americans. And brought many to a state of mental and emotional collapse.

 

The PREVENT Pandemics Act looks collectively at this devastation and how to bolster the nation against future attacks. This legislation offers thorough recommendations on how to strengthen American people and organizations, and bring about necessary change.²

 

What Issues Does the PREVENT Pandemics Act Address?

The PREVENT Pandemics Act addresses everything from mending broken supply chains to enforcing CDC reform. The Act focuses on an array of specific preparedness measures including improving threat monitoring, diving deeper into innovative research, bolstering government medical supplies, and enacting countermeasures against any future threats.³

 

 The bill also emphasizes restoring the social and psychological fallout of the Covid-19 Pandemic. These topics include offering mental health services, refreshing the current health force, and modernizing the collection process of health data. The bill even hopes to scale down on the development time for drug manufacturing to enable quick and effective output when needed in the future.

 

Pushing CDC Reform

The CDC has faced heated inspection under the lights of the political and organizational leadership behind the PREVENT Pandemics bill.

 

Senator Richard Burr, a key spokesperson for the legislation said that, “During each of our hearings, members on both sides of the aisle rightfully challenged the CDC for their actions, confusing directives, and inability to provide realistic guidance to Americans. Through this bill, we are putting into place real, meaningful reforms that take important steps to improve the culture of the CDC, which desperately needs changing.”⁵ This Act will initiate changes to bring greater accountability to the CDC and greater clarity to the American people.

 

The Role of Laboratories in Emergency Preparedness

Laboratories play a vital role in this post-pandemic reform. The American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) states, “clinical laboratories with appropriate expertise are a critical element of pandemic response planning, preparedness training, proactive data monitoring, and the early testing response, both for emerging pathogen threats and larger epidemics and pandemics.”⁴ In other words, well-functioning laboratories are key to handling future threats. These labs provide a conduit to life-saving research and disease-preventative measures—both much needed resources in times of future crisis.

 

Conclusion

As you can see, the expanse of the PREVENT Pandemics bill is far-reaching, including everything from massive supply chain reform to groundbreaking research initiatives. Emergency preparedness lingers on all our minds in these uncertain times.

 

None of us want to go through a pandemic again. And that is exactly what this bill seeks to accomplish.

 

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