A federal watchdog has called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop and release comprehensive national strategies for testing and vaccination administration to address critical gaps in the fight against COVID-19.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report Thursday (PDF) outlining 13 new recommendations for the federal government to fight the pandemic. The recommendations include addressing gaps in workplace safety and how to shore up the supply chain.
“While GAO recognizes federal agencies continue to take some steps, GAO underscores the importance of developing a well-formulated plan to address critical gaps for the remainder of the pandemic, especially in light of the recent surge in cases,” the report said.
GAO said HHS needs to develop and make publicly available a national strategy for testing. The watchdog found HHS’ strategy documents aren’t comprehensive.
“For example, testing strategy documents do not always provide consistent definitions and benchmarks to measure progress, not all documents clearly define the problem and risks and there is limited information on the types of resources required for future needs,” the report said.
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Several stakeholders that spoke with GAO for the report said they didn’t have a clear understanding of any strategy or knew specifics of one.
GAO also reiterated the need to implement a focused plan on the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. The agency stressed back in September that HHS and the Department of Defense (DOD) should establish a time frame for documenting and sharing a national plan for distributing and administering the vaccine.
HHS and the DOD have coordinated the distribution of the vaccine to 64 jurisdictions but left it up to states and localities on how to distribute the vaccine. Former HHS Secretary Alex Azar said states have been too prescriptive in distributing the shots.
The watchdog also recommends that HHS should establish a process to engage with Congress and other stakeholders like private industry and state governments on its strategy to bolster the supply chain, including the role of the Strategic National Stockpile.
GAO said capitalizing on existing relationships can help HHS refine a supply chain strategy to improve the response and preparedness for pandemics.
The watchdog also pushed for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to improve its enforcement methods for protecting employees from unsafe workplace practices. The agency adapted its enforcement methods to include remote inspections in place of on-site inspections of workplaces.
But there are concerns about whether the new enforcement methods are causing OSHA to miss violations.
OSHA should develop a plan to ensure its enforcement team is not missing anything, GAO said. It also called for OSHA to determine whether more data are needed from employers to better target enforcement efforts.
Nurses have clamored for more help from OSHA as they face major dangers fighting the virus. Nursing unions have called on OSHA to create an emergency workplace protection standard that mandates infection control protections for employees during the pandemic.