I spent the day trying to assess some of the greatest needs we have and what the Federal government could be solving now. My post from two days ago was about our challenges. Today is about solutions.

I’m going to begin with the priorities that the Trump Administration should announce and then turn to what they can do to address them. I’m not looking to generate “good luck” or “yeah right” responses, rather I’m doing this to report on it and push the Administration.

Here are 20 priorities:

1. Save every life possible

Stop throwing around “acceptable” numbers

Dramatically take up #StayHome measures with CLEAR national standards. There IS a right answer. Use it

Use stadium capacity for ICUs everywhere

Spread life saving best practices

Speed therapies early

2. Feed & house Americans using our empty hotels and restaurants

The government should buy meals from local restaurants and deliver free to low income, subsidized to millions

Fill the hotels with housing insecure

Buy fresh farm production surplus and deliver

Enhance SNAP by multiples

NO breadlines in this crisis

3. Protect our front-line care providers as a special class

Make their safety our first priority

Backstop 2 billion orders of N95 masks

Make health care workers a special class eligible for benefits, child care and support

Push Congress to pay them a $5k/month stipend

Do not sleep until they’re safe

4. Protect the financial health of small businesses

Prevent creditors for closing businesses

Create grants to allow businesses to go online

Expand the small business loans to all businesses who keep their employees hired

Tax large employers who lay-off employees and pay exec bonuses

5. Keep primary care physicians up

Move all non-COVID care to safe settings

Have insurance companies pledge to front load payments to medical profession (they are flush as people avoid doctors)

Allow every physician to join a telemedicine platform with full payment

6. Roll out a strategy to protect the most vulnerable communities

Reinstall Obama-era nursing home infection control

Depopulate prisons

Provide resources to multi-generational households

Create special resources to identify and serve chronic populations at home: group homes, foster homes, Sect 8

7. Significantly improve production of PPE

Buy 2 billion masks and end the black market

Stop the stupid trade wars and buy the fine mesh in China

South Korea and Philippines have a huge surplus

8. Stamp out and jail profiteering

As we empty the prisons there will be plenty of room to shove in the people running warehouses of N95 masks at 8x the price

9. Create national standards for distancing, essential workforce, travel and business openings

People travel across state borders — 6 feet is 6 feet, home is home, essential is essential. Just say it. Enforce it. Save lives. Then heal together.

10. Call on American companies and philanthropists to do what it takes

The Federal government wont meet every need. Some of the greatest fortunes ever accumulated are right here, right now

What exactly are these fortunes for but to serve the poor NOW, to invest in big bet inventions NOW?

11. Create a national testing leadership team and strategy

Create enough tests, two for every symptomatic person

Put all the supplies needed behind the labs which produce the quickest, most accurate tests

Make testing ubiquitous

Develop a pinprick antibody test

Contact trace like South Korea

One czar overseeing the strategy

12. Restore dismantled command & control structure

Start by restoring the infrastructure on readiness the Trump Administration tore down

Treat this like a military operation where equipment and trainee personnel must be moved

Don’t require governors to navigate and compete

13. Create transparent national reporting of cases, hospitalizations & community readiness

The Public can handle the truth. Not a month later, but on time.

We don’t need chosen facts by the White House. We need a consistent dashboard of facts.

14. Create the largest ever national volunteerism movement to meet the needs of people

Millions of young people are without jobs. People who want to contribute and not feel like victims

The homebound and isolated need things

Hospital workers need everything

Complement with Universal Basic Income

15. Address the non-COVID clinical needs of Americans

Hospitals were full before COVID

Designate non-COVID hospitals

Create national home based, telehealth system

Ensure drug supply for chronic conditions, insulin, chemo, etc.

Bring back and graduate health corps

16. Launch a national mental health infrastructure

The effects of exposure to prolonged trauma is severe

Create and train 500,000 licensed new social worker corps

Support front line health care workers, socially isolated

Take steps to end stigma and address addiction

Free access for online group therapy and recovery

17. Integrate and coordinate medical resources between community, VA, DOD hospitals

Severe COVID patients need added resources

Significantly expand our health care capacity

Bring overseas medical personnel and operations home

Set up fever tents, thermometer and testing checkpoints

Cross licensing and admitting

18. Suspend foreclosures, evictions and bankruptcies

People should be able to enroll in Medicaid retrospectively if they lose their jobs or can’t afford insurance

19. Meet the specific needs of the disability community

Remember 12% of population, many already at risk and in poverty

Paid family and medical leave

Pay family care givers as personal care attendants

Direct support for home and community based care

Lift asset tests

The next CMS Administrator (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) needs to be someone living with a disability

20. Convene scientists to oversee and implement discoveries quickly, transparently, and equitably

Give the National Academy of Sciences the lead in determining virus status/capability

Ensure a robust pipeline of vaccines, therapies with supercomputing support

Begin to build manufacturing infrastructure before the vaccine is ready

Prepare for the next epidemic

There are many things that only the federal government can do well. A massive Marshall plan and call for togetherness with common facts will be necessary to defeat this. If the federal government can’t or won’t, we must. I have been spending time on each item in this agenda.

I’m a lay person in many of these areas. I see many people with real expertise able to drive these forward. But a federal government with a clear, bold, actionable agenda would allow us to race instead of zigzag.

Many actions we don’t need the federal government for. And a bunch of things we need Congress for. We have put out a set of recommendations to Congress:

Every two weeks, United States of Care sends memos to each state summarizing best practices. They maintain a rapid response unit and a resource center. Every employee of the non-profit is full time on COVID response. Now it’s full time. Here’s the most recent:

I will talk more about testing tomorrow. Sadly I don’t think we will have our crap together until the Fall Coronavirus wave (which I will write about coming up).