Good morning,
Forwarding the below message to IHS officers with a non-IHS.gov email address to ensure receipt.
Have a great week and please continue to be safe and well.
V/r,
CAPT Angela Mtungwa
Director, Div. of Commissioned Personnel Support
Commissioned Corps Liaison
Office of Human Resources
Indian Health Service
301-443-5440
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From: For OS announcements to all of HHS <HHS-NEWS-ALL@LIST.NIH.GOV> On Behalf Of Azar, Alex (OS/IOS)
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2020 1:20 PM
To: HHS-NEWS-ALL@LIST.NIH.GOV
Subject: Promoting health on all fronts during the pandemic
Dear Colleagues,
As our department focuses on defeating the COVID-19 pandemic, we also have to remain vigilant on the many other health challenges our country faces. In particular, we have to work to address how some social distancing measures to slow the spread of the virus may exacerbate other physical and mental health issues. The pandemic presents challenges for work we do across HHS to enhance and protect Americans’ health and well-being, whether that’s making progress against serious mental illness and addiction, providing support to older Americans and Americans with disabilities, protecting vulnerable children from maltreatment, or preventing disease through early detection.
All Americans should be proud of the sacrifices they have made to keep each other safe from COVID-19. Our colleagues across HHS can be especially proud of the work they have done to develop and promote evidence-based recommendations that have saved lives and slowed the spread.
Many of these precautions, like using face coverings, will help us safely return to work and school. Doing everything we can to beat the virus and safely return our country to normal is not just about beating the virus itself. It’s about allowing us to continue progress against all the other health challenges we focus on, too.
As the pandemic continues, we know that the costs of social isolation and economic crisis are substantial. Last week, Assistant Secretary McCance-Katz of SAMHSA presented to the President’s Cabinet meeting about the behavioral health effects of social isolation, which can last long after the crisis has receded. The work we do to protect vulnerable children and the elderly is also under threat: States are seeing fewer reports of child maltreatment, which is likely going unreported because children are isolated from teachers and others who can help keep an eye on the vulnerable.
On the disease prevention front, we have seen rates of common cancer screenings plummet. A CDC report found that the period from mid-March to mid-April saw 2.5 million fewer non-flu vaccine orders, including 250,000 fewer orders of measles vaccines.
The work we are doing across the department to beat COVID-19 will save lives not just because we need to defeat the virus, but also because safely reopening our country is an important step for our health in other ways. That’s why you may have heard me say that the right way to think about a return to normal isn’t about health versus the economy; it’s about health versus health.
Thankfully, real progress is being made all the time against the virus, and we’re supporting work to promote health even while the risks of the virus remain. I got the chance to see some of this on the ground this past week, in North Carolina and Florida. In Charlotte, for instance, I visited a health center supported by HRSA that provides COVID-19 testing as well as a range of primary care services. They’ve gotten creative about how to provide care while minimizing the risk of COVID-19 transmission, including by opening drive-through services.
More than half of visits to health centers nationally are now being done virtually, building on years of work by HRSA to promote telehealth, as well as new grants they’ve recently put out during the crisis. Health centers are playing a crucial role on testing, with nearly 90 percent of them now offering COVID-19 testing, which is especially important for the vulnerable populations they serve.
In Florida, it was encouraging to see how our efforts to increase testing have paid off. At TIAA Bank Field, where the Jacksonville Jaguars play, the Florida National Guard and Jacksonville’s city government have converted the parking lot into a testing site where over 13,000 tests have now been completed. This kind of community-based testing site model has been implemented around the country, including by HHS, with the assistance of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
It was encouraging to see how healthcare providers are adapting to keep delivering care, and to see how hard work across HHS supports health efforts on the ground. We’re making progress against the virus on all fronts, including with our Operation Warp Speed effort to deliver a vaccine in substantial quantities by January. Last week, we signed a contract that could begin delivering doses of AstraZeneca’s potential vaccine as soon as this October.
Before we have a vaccine, we’re supporting states, healthcare providers, businesses, houses of worship, schools, and other organizations in determining how and when to safely reopen. CDC has been publishing considerations for various sectors to take into account as they make decisions about scaling up operations. That will include a special focus on how to protect Americans at particular risk for the virus, like those who are immunocompromised or living with a condition like diabetes.
All of this work—testing, adapting healthcare facilities, getting creative about how to make work and school safe—is essential to protect us from the virus and ensure that COVID-19 does not set us back on so many other efforts to improve Americans’ health and well-being.
I have confidence that we, as a department, can help America get this balance right—because I know how devoted our team is to protecting Americans’ health from a wide range of threats, and because you have responded so admirably throughout this crisis so far.
Thank you for the work you have done to enhance and protect Americans’ health and well-being on all fronts. Keep up the good work.
Alex M. Azar II
Secretary of Health and Human Services