CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER’S MESSAGE
@#$& Happens
2020…what can I say? Despite the fact
that many of us have been staying
at home and protecting ourselves by
rigorously planning even a simple outing
to the grocery store during the COVID-19
pandemic, the work being done by our
members and partners has continued to
accelerate. Not only are we all living in the
pandemic, we’re working the pandemic.
And what does this mean? For me, it
means a lot of early mornings, late
nights and more interviews with the
media about the work of our members,
lab testing, exposure notification, supply
shortages—from January 1 to July 1, 2020,
news articles mentioning APHL reached
about 25 billion people. We always said
that we needed something big to bring
attention to laboratories, so I guess a
pandemic with a myriad of testing issues
is that “something big.” I never thought in
my wildest dreams that my potty mouth
would be exposed for the world to see and
hear. Having been bleeped on PBS was
both a high and low point this year.
For our members, it means early
mornings, late nights, long days, no
weekends—either at the laboratory or
leading the laboratory from afar. It means
endless conference calls with federal
agencies, local partners and meetings
with the Governor (I bet many of you now
know the Governor personally). It means
dealing with supply shortages, fielding
calls from angry policymakers, pleading
with companies to send more [fill in the
blank here], and spending hours solving
problems you never knew existed. It
means trying to keep up with the science,
which is moving really quickly. It means
not being home or fully present with your
family, because you are at the laboratory
or on call. When at home, you are now
teachers, caregivers, and probably giving
advice to friends and family because you
are in the know.
I’m tired. You are tired. Your staff are tired.
Still, we persevere.
This pandemic has exposed what has
been painfully obvious to us for a long
time. Years ago, APHL and our partners
raised the clarion call to improve the
nation’s public health data systems. The
need for an improved data system hasn’t
gone away with COVID-19—in fact it is
more crucial than ever.
Last year we sought $100 million for data
modernization and Congress provided
$50 million. This year alone, Congress has
allocated over $12 billion to COVID-19
response efforts through the Coronavirus
Preparedness and Response Supplemental
Appropriations Act, the CARES Act, the
Paycheck Protection Program and Health
Care Enhancement Act. Under the CARES
act, public health data surveillance and
analytics infrastructure modernization
received an additional $500 million.
So how do we modernize these systems in
the midst of this pandemic? The money is
now there, as is the political will to spend
that money on these systems. What are
our needs now? People and time. APHL is
stepping in to do as much as we can, from
ensuring laboratories are using the same
testing language to reconfiguring routes
and data feeds. But on the state and local
side, we know it’s hard to find qualified
staff who understand both health
informatics and the laboratory. Still, we
persevere.
Our partners continue to support both
clinical and public health laboratories
by providing support for testing and
response work. APHL members have
increased collaboration with the clinical
sector, as well as established new
partnerships with university testing and
research laboratories. APHL has partnered
with tech giants Apple, Google and
Microsoft on new exposure notification
protocols, opening a whole new avenue
to support public health agencies by
hosting national servers and allowing for
exposure notification to take place across
state lines.
There’s no denying that we are living
in transformational times. COVID-19,
economic instability and racial injustice
are testing our resilience and our
tolerance. But the truth is we are both
resilient and tolerant. Time has taken on
a new dimension for us. The advances
that are being made in information
sharing, training and data exchange can’t
be denied and will continue to reshape
public health for years to come. Our
highest priority is still to do our jobs to
the best of our ability, continue to educate
our communities about what we do, and
ensure a healthier world through quality
laboratory systems.
We will persevere. n
The advances that are being
made in information sharing, training
and data exchange can’t be denied
and will continue to reshape public
health for years to come.
Scott Becker, MS
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
APHL.org
Summer 2020 LAB MATTERS 3