IDSA President Meets with White House COVID-19 Task Force

IDSA President Thomas File, Jr, M.D., FIDSA participated in a March 18 virtual meeting of the White House COVID-19 Task Force with the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, the American Medical Association and medical specialty society leaders.

During the meeting, President Trump opened with an overview of the administration’s approach to the pandemic and expressed gratitude for the efforts of all health care workers who are working tirelessly to care for patients. In addition, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma reviewed CMS’ telehealth decisions, including relaxation of HIPAA requirements to allow wider permitted modes for telehealth and indicated the agency is working to ease the quality reporting burden and eliminate federal reporting requirements during this time. She also noted their efforts to ease restrictions around state licensing.

Ambassador Deborah Birx, M.D., response coordinator for the task force, had specific questions for some specialty societies and asked that they share further information with her and identify what else is needed. Vice President Pence reviewed how the administration is working to facilitate services, including testing and PPE availability. He also discussed the Defense Production Act and efforts to engage leading suppliers for medical supplies.

Dr. File shared several concerns and recommendations on behalf of infectious diseases experts including:

• the need for significant expansion of testing capacity
• the need to lift federal regulations regarding use of research laboratory supplies, except for those researching COVID-19, in light of shortages of testing materials
• the importance of research needs, including treatments (antivirals, host modifying strategies and post exposure prophylaxis); vaccine development; epidemiological studies (including zoonotic escape, evolution and transmission dynamics); and pathogenesis studies
• support for President Trump’s social distancing guidelines, as well as the need to increase the standard and uniformity of mitigation measures across the country to ensure compliance

Meeting participants were asked to keep the lines of communication open and were provided Dr. Birx’s direct contact information to share additional concerns as the pandemic evolves.