It’s time to rethink America’s pandemic strategy, experts say. Here’s what they recommend

Judy Woodruff:

This week marks a full year since President Biden took office. That also means the president has had broad responsibility for the federal response to the pandemic for a year.

There is plenty of data to suggest that things are not going well at this moment. Cases are surging in many parts of the country, with nearly 800,000 new cases a day. Hospitalizations and deaths are up significantly compared with two weeks ago. There are close to 140,000 people admitted to the hospital in total with confirmed COVID right now. And the country is reporting more than 1,700 deaths a day now.

There have been calls for shifting the administration's strategy. That includes several articles written by former advisers to the president.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is a lead of that group of public health experts. He is the vice provost of global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, and he joins me now.

Zeke Emanuel, welcome back to the "NewsHour."

So, tell us, why is a new approach needed?

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Former White House Special Adviser:

Well, the Biden administration came in a year ago with a strategic plan, and it executed very well on that plan, got more people vaccinated, got more tests out to the community, began developing other interventions for the public.

And then we had cases come down in June, but we developed Delta, we developed Omicron. And the people in the administration have been working hard to address those acute problems.

And they do marshal in and require us to rethink the direction of interventions and how we deploy everything together. And that was really the source of our viewpoints.

Judy Woodruff:

So, what would a new — what would this new approach look like? How would it be different?

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel:

Well, first of all, we have to get there. As you pointed out, we have 1,750 or so deaths a day. We're nowhere near getting to a new normal.

But we can see that we're not going to eradicate COVID. We're going to have to live with it. And living with it means we have to take measures that allow it to be in the background and not causing so much mortality.

And so part of this is we have to make sure that we have good air filtration in all indoor spaces, an issue which we have not heavily emphasized, but can make a big difference, improve that filtration of air. We do have to improve our vaccine distribution.

One of the reasons we're having so many hospitalizations and so many people in the intensive care unit and such high deaths is that a lot of people are not becoming vaccinated. And most of those people are ending up — or the people ending up in the hospital are mostly unvaccinated.

If you're vaccinated and boosted, your chance of dying from getting Omicron, one in 34,000. That is very, very safe. And we have to get more people vaccinated. And, plus, we need more therapies. We have a couple of nice oral antiviral therapies against COVID, but we need more, and we need more volume of them.

So, those are some of the areas that will get there, and the new normal will like look new normal.

(CROSSTALK)

Judy Woodruff:

If I could stop you there, Zeke Emanuel, I want to pick up on what you said about vaccinations.

How would you have the administration up the number of people vaccinated? They have obviously been pleading with Americans to get vaccinated. It's become a political issue. And now you have the Supreme Court ruling just a few days ago against the administration's requirement that large employers have people vaccinated, employees vaccinated.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel:

Well, first of all, we do have to get all those health care workers vaccinated.

The Supreme Court did deal a very severe blow to responding to this pandemic, and I think the ruling was just unjustifiable. The federal government clearly has authority to protect people, and people in their workplace are threatened by COVID.

So the federal government has to try other things. It has to target the workplace vaccine requirements. It probably has to make a requirement on air travel, train travel, bus travel — that's interstate — that it can control. It's got to work with states to mandate vaccination for children when we're convinced that the vaccines are totally safe for them.

These are important areas in which we can make progress in. And it really has to work with employers. Again, it can't mandate them, but it has to work with them. We have seen a lot of employers where things have gotten much better when they vaccinate their people.

They — more people show up to work, they have safer work environments, and things go much better. And very few employees who are required to get a vaccine actually quit.

Judy Woodruff:

And I hear you saying that that's the ideal, but we also know there is resistance out there, very stubborn resistance that exists.

I do want to ask you, though. You said a moment ago you understand this can't happen, a lot of it, right now because we are dealing with this Omicron wave, with deaths and — excuse me — and hospitalizations still at a very high number.

So you're saying just to get this ready for the future? Is that what you're asking the administration to do?

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel:

No, it's not just get ready for the future. Many of the things we suggest will actually address problems now.

As I mentioned, getting more people vaccinated, improving air quality, having more people masked will actually both address the problem now and be important for the long term.

And I would say, Judy, that disinformation, that misinformation, that resistance to things like vaccines didn't come out of nowhere. It's been fostered by Republicans who have no other response to this pandemic, and that has made it harder for the nation to have an effective response. We do need to counter that. And countering that will require dealing with the social media environment.

Judy Woodruff:

Well, let me — and, of course, that raises a number of other questions.

But I do want to ask you about a comment made by one of your public health expert colleagues who was part of putting these public statements, these articles out publicly a few days ago.

Dr. Luciana Borio, she's a former chief scientist at the FDA. She said: "It feels like we're always fighting yesterday" — she is referring to the administration. She said: "It feels it's like we're always fighting yesterday's crisis and not necessarily thinking about what needs to be done today to prepare us for what comes next."

In effect, the administration hasn't been thinking, forward-thinking enough. Is that your observation as well?

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel:

Look, Judy, I have been in the trenches in the White House during a crisis in 2009 and 2010, working on the Affordable Care Act.

You are just trying to manage all the crises. You need a separate group that is thinking about the strategy and what we can do today for the long term, and really make the infrastructure changes we need. And that's what we were suggesting. And that's the suggestions we had for them on strategic goals and how to operationalize those goals.

And, by the way, they have been very well-received.

Judy Woodruff:

They are listening to you?

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel:

Well, I don't know. We will find out soon.

(LAUGHTER)

Judy Woodruff:

Well, we will be back in touch to find out what the answer is.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel:

Thank you, Judy. A pleasure to be here.