HCAOA The Voice Winter 2020

14 HCAOA The Voice FEATURE ARTICLE COVID-19 Pandemic President-Elect Biden’s main priority will be controlling the spread of COVID-19 with several initiatives focusing on the population most vulnerable to the virus, protecting frontline workers, and ensuring the government’s support of small businesses. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) • Ensure all Americans have access to regular, reliable, and free testing. • Double the number of drive-through testing sites. • Invest in next-generation testing, including at-home tests and instant tests, so we can scale up our testing capacity by orders of magnitude. • Set up a Pandemic Testing Board to produce and distribute tens of millions of tests. • Give states, cities, tribes, and territories the critical supplies they need. • Fully use the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of masks, face shields, and other PPE so that the national supply of personal protective equipment exceeds demand and our stores and stockpiles—especially in hard-hit areas that serve disproportionately vulnerable populations—are fully replenished. • Build immediately toward an American-sourced manufacturing capability to ensure we are not dependent on other countries in a crisis. • Provide clear, consistent, evidence-based guid- ance for how communities should navigate the pandemic—and the resources for schools, small businesses, and families to make it through. • Provide a “restart package” that helps small businesses cover the costs of operating safely, including things like plexiglass and PPE.