The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), originally called the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile (NPS), is the United States' national repository of antibiotics, vaccines, chemical antidotes, antitoxins, and other critical medical supplies. Its website states:
"The Strategic National Stockpile's role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies. Many states have products stockpiled, as well. The supplies, medicines, and devices for life-saving care contained in the stockpile can be used as a short-term stopgap buffer when the immediate supply of adequate amounts of these materials may not be immediately available."
The NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, a nonprofit academic medical center in New York City, is the primary teaching hospital for two Ivy League medical schools, Weill Cornell Medicine at Cornell University and Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. The hospital includes seven campuses located throughout the New York metropolitan area. The hospital's two flagship medical centers, Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medical Center, are located on opposite sides of Upper Manhattan.
Leana Sheryle Wen is an American physician, author, professor, speaker, consultant, newspaper columnist and television commentator. She is former health commissioner for the city of Baltimore and former president of Planned Parenthood. She has written two books based on her experiences as a medical professional.
Marc K. Siegel is an American physician, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, author, and contributor to The Hill, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Fox News, and member of the board of contributors at USA Today. He is the medical director of NYU's Doctor Radio on Sirius XM.
Deena Hinshaw is a Canadian doctor who serves as a Deputy Provincial Health Officer for British Columbia and served as Chief Medical Officer of Health for the province of Alberta from January 28, 2019, to November 14, 2022, after being removed by Danielle Smith. She provided daily updates on the COVID-19 pandemic in Alberta to the public throughout most of 2020 and into 2021, though she stopped holding regular briefings in at the end of June 2021. She also provided recommendations to Jason Kenney, the former Premier of Alberta and the Emergency Management Cabinet Committee.
Bonnie J. Fraser Henry is a Canadian epidemiologist, physician, and public servant who has been the provincial health officer at the British Columbia Ministry of Health since 2014. Henry is also a clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia. She is a specialist in public health and preventive medicine, and is a family doctor. In her role as provincial health officer, Henry notably led the response to COVID-19 in British Columbia (BC).
Shortages related to the COVID-19 pandemic are pandemic-related disruptions to goods production and distribution, insufficient inventories, and disruptions to workplaces caused by infections and public policy.
Dara Kass is an emergency medicine physician and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. She is also an advocate for advancing the careers of women in medicine. While treating patients during the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, Kass became infected. Since then, she has become a prominent voice advocating for access to personal protective equipment and more effective measures to combat the spread of the disease.
Oxiris Barbot is an American pediatrician who served as the Commissioner of Health of the City of New York from 2018 to 2020. She was then appointed to public health positions with Columbia University and the JPB Foundation, and in 2022 became president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit United Hospital Fund.
Uché Blackstock is an American emergency physician and former associate professor of emergency medicine at the New York University School of Medicine. She is the founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, which has a primary mission to engage with healthcare and related organizations around bias and racism in healthcare with the goal of mobilizing for health equity and eradicating racialized health inequities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Blackstock used social media to share her experiences and concerns as a physician working on the front lines and on racial health disparities and inequities exposed by the pandemic. She is best known for her work illuminating racial health inequities and her media appearances speaking about the COVID-19 pandemic. Blackstock became a Yahoo! News Medical Contributor in June 2020.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-abortion government officials in several American states enacted or attempted to enact restrictions on abortion, characterizing it as a non-essential procedure that can be suspended during the medical emergency. The orders have led to several legal challenges and criticism by abortion-rights groups and several national medical organizations, including the American Medical Association. Legal challenges on behalf of abortion providers, many of which are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood, have successfully stopped some of the orders on a temporary basis, though bans in several states have not been challenged.
Megan L. Ranney is a practicing American emergency physician currently serving as the Dean of the Yale School of Public Health. Previously, Ranney served as the Deputy Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, was Warren Alpert Endowed Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Rhode Island Hospital and the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Ranney was the founding Director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health.
Richard Mark Levitan is an American emergency medicine physician and businessperson. He is a clinical professor of medicine at Dartmouth College and a practicing physician at the Littleton Regional Hospital. He also runs a company that creates materials and runs events to teach emergency airway management.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted hospitals around the world. Many hospitals have scaled back or postponed non-emergency care. This has medical consequences for the people served by the hospitals, and it has financial consequences for the hospitals. Health and social systems across the globe are struggling to cope. The situation is especially challenging in humanitarian, fragile and low-income country contexts, where health and social systems are already weak. Health facilities in many places are closing or limiting services. Services to provide sexual and reproductive health care risk being sidelined, which will lead to higher maternal mortality and morbidity. The pandemic also resulted in the imposition of COVID-19 vaccine mandates in places such as California and New York for all public workers, including hospital staff.
Lorna Margaret Breen was an American physician who was the emergency room director at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. She died by suicide in 2020, while taking a break with family in Charlottesville, Virginia during the coronavirus pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted healthcare workers physically and psychologically. Healthcare workers are more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection than the general population due to frequent contact with positive COVID-19 patients. Healthcare workers have been required to work under stressful conditions without proper protective equipment, and make difficult decisions involving ethical implications. Health and social systems across the globe are struggling to cope. The situation is especially challenging in humanitarian, fragile and low-income country contexts, where health and social systems are already weak. Services to provide sexual and reproductive health care risk being sidelined, which will lead to higher maternal mortality and morbidity.
Cleavon Gilman is an emergency physician and public health advocate in the United States. He is also an Iraq war veteran having been a Navy Hospital Corpsman attached to the U.S. Marine Corps. He completed his residency training in New York City at the Presbyterian Hospital during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequently moved to Yuma, Arizona in June 2020.
The United States' response to the COVID-19 pandemic with consists of various measures by the medical community; the federal, state, and local governments; the military; and the private sector. The public response has been highly polarized, with partisan divides being observed and a number of concurrent protests and unrest complicating the response.
The United Kingdom's response to the COVID-19 pandemic consists of various measures by the healthcare community, the British and devolved governments, the military and the research sector.
James Maskalyk is a Canadian emergency medicine physician, author, and meditation teacher.
