“This is not a public health crisis — it’s a political crisis:” Stanford epidemiologist Dr. Steve Goodman on the exploding COVID-19 pandemic & the abdication of leadership

The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman

Why does the U.S. now have the worst COVID-19 outbreak in the world? Dr. Steve Goodman argues that public health experts “know exactly how to [manage COVID] – we just need the political will.” He notes, “It’s not politicians who are shutting down the economy. It’s the virus that’s shutting down the economy.” He likens the Trump administration’s abandonment of national leadership to fight the pandemic to Winston Churchill, “instead of saying ‘we’ll fight them everywhere, we’ll fight them on the beaches,’ said to his country, ‘Just go get a gun and you decide how to fight them.’” Goodman also discusses promising advances in treatments, what it will take to return to school safely, and whether the US has abandoned public health. (July 15, 2020 broadcast)

Read the article in Medium based on this Vermont Conversation.

Steven Goodman, MD, PhD, Associate Dean, Professor of Epidemiology & Population Health, and Medicine, Stanford School of Medicine

https://vtconversation.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/vt-convo-7-15-20-pt-1-steve-goodman.mp3