The SARS‐CoV‐2/COVID‐19 pandemic has been devastating to the U.S. health‐care system and sheds light on gaps in preparedness and response to biological threats. From limited personal protective equipment to staffing issues, hospitals are struggling to respond to the novel coronavirus outbreak. Unfortunately, hospital biopreparedness is a product of prioritization for hospital leadership and either exists or is neglected. Federal efforts to enhance health‐care readiness have done little to drive true change across the U.S. health‐care infrastructure. From optional efforts like the tiered hospital approach to special pathogens to the regulatory rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, federal efforts to build a resilient health‐care infrastructure against biological threats are woefully inadequate and dependent upon hospital leadership priorities. The COVID‐19 pandemic has revealed a need to implement regulatory requirements on health‐care facilities to invest in continued preparedness for biological events.
In: Gurdasani , D , Bear , L , Bogaert , D , Burgess , R A , Busse , R , Cacciola , R , Charpak , Y , Colbourn , T , Drury , J , Friston , K , Gallo , V , Goldman , L , Greenhalgh , T , Hyde , Z , Kuppalli , K , Majumder , M , Martin-Moreno , J M , McKee , M , Michie , S , Mossialos , E , Nouri , A , Pagel , C , Pimenta , D , Popescu , S , Priesemann , V , Rasmussen , A L , Reicher , S , Ricciardi , W , Rice , K , Silver , J , Smith , T C , Wenham , C , West , R , Yarney , G , Yates , K & Ziauddeen , H 2020 , ' The UK needs a sustainable strategy for COVID-19 ' , The Lancet , vol. 396 , no. 10265 , pp. 1800-1801 . https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32350-3
The UK is well into the second wave of COVID-19, with 60 051 lives lost to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection to date, according to provisional data from the Office for National Statistics. Official UK Government data show that cases have been rising exponentially since late August, 2020, with increases across all regions in England in recent weeks. As of Nov 4, 2020, the UK had 25 177 confirmed daily cases. These are almost certainly underestimates as between Oct 17 and Oct 23, 2020, England alone had 52 000 estimated daily cases. Estimates of the effective reproduction number in England vary between 1.1 and 1.6. Daily deaths have doubled every fortnight since early September, 2020, with 2067 deaths from COVID-19 in the past week and around 12 000 deaths more are likely in the next month—the majority among people who have already been infected. With 12 000 patients currently in hospital with COVID-19, health services are close to capacity in many regions. We are seeing more than 1400 daily hospital admissions in England, a single doubling period away from the peak of 3000 daily admissions that occurred in April, 2020, which could be reached within 2–3 weeks.
