We don’t have to choose between saving lives and saving jobs, between public health and the economy.
Science can help us find the policies and interventions that will do both.
And we have that scientific capacity right here in Atlanta.
How do you deliver, scale up and spread those interventions that prevent and mitigate the illness? How do we distribute treatments and vaccines equitably? Second, We need to combine the social sciences — economics, political science and psychology — with the biological sciences to help us understand how best to protect the public’s health and restore the economy.
Given how much remains unknown about this virus, these are not things that we can figure out in our heads.
The way to find out is to do the experiments and track the results closely. This is the way science works.
Third, science allows recommendations to be objective and credible. Sharing the evidence and being transparent about our methods can also generate trust in our results, especially if we have new findings that result in changes to recommendations.
Fourth, science allows for efficiency and continuous improvement.
There is much to be gained by sharing knowledge about what works so that we can continue to build upon it.
For example, if the question is how to collect and process viral tests, it will be more efficient to answer the question once and use it 50 times than to have 50 states all try to answer the question and each use it once.
Scientific knowledge can be integrated, translated and shared.
Scientific guidance can be used by government at all levels as well as the private sector and civil society.
We are fortunate that our government has a world-class scientific institution that draws over 15,000 of the top minds in science from all over the world to Atlanta.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employs more than 21,000 people across all 50 states and more than 50 countries.
They are epidemiologists, statisticians, laboratorians, physicians, nurses, anthropologists, writers, psychologists, economists and policy analysts, representing all stages of knowledge management: generation, integration, dissemination and application.
The evidence that CDC uses to develop its recommendations does not just serve health care professionals and institutions.
Science does not serve just Red states or Blue states. All businesses need evidence-based guidance on when to reopen and how to move forward, and they can benefit from CDC’s unbiased guidance.
The benefit of this function being held within government is that these functions do not directly generate profits, so the work can be performed using objective and high-quality universal standards the public can trust.
CDC can also help with the coordinated mobilization and allocation of resources. Strengthening our capacity in health care and public health will strengthen our capacity to put evidence-based, science-driven programs and policies into action.
CDC has not always shined during this pandemic. It did not perform well in quickly developing a test for infection and it has misspoken at times and made some mistakes. But our global community needs science more now than ever before.
We need to know the truth.
Politics has and will continue to play a role in determining public health policies.
But we need to know what the science says so we can decide what policies to support and understand the importance of following CDC guidelines.
CDC needs to be transparent with its evidence and information.
CDC should be asked to report daily on the who, what, where, why, when and how people are becoming infected.
We all have a role to play by asking to see and understand the evidence behind recommendations for closing or reopening parts of the economy.
CDC’s importance does not begin and end with the coronavirus.
Its ongoing work of tracking and helping to control many more epidemics, including obesity, heart disease, and all sorts of interpersonal violence and suicide — remains essential for our country and the world. Even more now than ever, mental health needs attention.
Many countries around the world need to help strengthen their ability to prevent, detect and treat new emerging viral diseases and they look to CDC for guidance and leadership. It is very much in our interest to prevent diseases there to protect our citizens here.
When we fail to use science, we all suffer. Let’s take a lesson from history and strengthen and sustain CDC and our public health science capacities. In fact, that’s the only way we will win.
Dr. Mark L. Rosenberg is an epidemiologist, infectious disease physician and psychiatrist. He is president emeritus of the Task Force for Global Health and a former assistant surgeon general.
Julie Rosenberg is deputy director of the Global Health Delivery Project at Harvard. She is Mark Rosenberg’s daughter.