Allowing DACA’s termination would undermine the extraordinary measures being applied by states, universities, hospitals and private institutions across the nation to address the critical shortage of health care workers. New York, Connecticut and California, for example, have issued orders allowing the authorization of professionals with out-of-state licenses to practice; California and New York have asked retirees to return to service; and New York has authorized graduates of foreign medical schools with at least one year of graduate medical education to provide patient care in hospitals.

Medical schools in New York and Massachusetts are accelerating the graduation of medical students to speed more doctors to the front lines of the pandemic. Field hospitals have been set up in Central Park and the Javits Center in New York and in the Yale University gymnasium, among other sites. Naval ships have arrived in New York, the pandemic’s epicenter, and Los Angeles to further increase health care capacity. All of those places need to be staffed. At the federal level, the administration is actively seeking medical professionals from abroad to help with Covid-19 treatment.

But hospitals and communities have already invested in the training and education of DACA health care workers — investments that would be lost if the Supreme Court eliminates their ability to work in the United States. These providers cannot be quickly replaced upon the announcement of an affirmative Supreme Court decision — it takes over a decade to fully train a new physician and years to train nurses and other critically needed health care workers.

Moreover, it is not just the DACA health care workers who are contributing to our fight against the coronavirus. More than 150,000 other DACA recipients work in other industries that we depend on right now, including grocery stores, drugstores, transportation and warehousing, manufacturing, and custodial and food service. Our doctors and nurses rely on scientists and pharmacists to develop and administer testing and treatment for Covid-19. Many of those essential workers are DACA recipients, too.

A brief recently filed with the Supreme Court by lawyers representing DACA recipients asks the court to take account of the current crisis as it weighs their fate. The brief correctly asserts the enormity of the need for health care professionals in this crisis and that the Trump administration did not adequately consider the interests of “employers, civil society, state and local governments, and communities across the country,” among many others, when it made the decision to end the program.

Nor would a temporary fix be acceptable. Our workers cannot be asked to serve in this crisis for now, only to be deported later. That would be inhumane and shortsighted. Just as we rely on these essential workers today, we will rely on them and be grateful for them tomorrow.

If the Supreme Court allows the termination of DACA during this pandemic, the work of our hospitals will suffer a critical blow at exactly the moment when we can least afford it. At a time when the importance — and scarcity — of our medical resources has never been clearer, neither our institutions nor the nation can afford a disruption to the health care work force. We desperately need all hands on deck for this fight.