With nationwide community-spread of COVID-19 and extreme volatility in the economic markets, Congressional action is necessary and appropriate to help keep the United States healthy and to avoid financial calamity. Doing so will require significant financial investment, legislative and executive action, and the full participation of all segments of American society — government, the private sector, and individual citizens.

As experts in public health, medicine, policy and law, and with prior expertise in developing federal health legislation and public health initiatives, we hereby present a framework designed to protect the health of all Americans in the face of this unprecedented epidemic. Because this framework is directed at Congress, we do not detail critical efforts that must be undertaken, and in some cases already are being undertaken at the state level. States have broad emergency powers to regulate insurance and health care access. If asked, the President should immediately invoke the Stafford Act to trigger an influx of federal funds and support state, tribal, and local government response efforts. An additional Presidential declaration via the National Emergencies Act would empower multiple federal agencies to waive or relax current legal restrictions.

Four basic principles guided the development of the framework offered here:

• Ensuring health security is the fundamental duty and responsibility of government at all levels — federal, state, and local.

• Protecting Americans’ health in this time of crisis should be a unifying effort; it should not be and cannot be divisive.

•  Immediate and targeted action is required to address the current coronavirus epidemic.  

• Sustained investments in public health are needed to respond to this acute crisis and to prepare the nation for future epidemics.