On February 24, 2021, Dr. Crystal Watson, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering and the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, provided expert testimony at a congressional hearing on perspectives about the COVID-19 pandemic one year later.
The hearing was convened by the US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security.
Dr. Watson’s testimony provided an update on the status of the pandemic and the US government’s response efforts to date; major successes and failures of the last year; and what we should anticipate and prepare for in the coming weeks and months.
“One year later, thanks to the efforts of scientific and public health leaders, we have answers to many of the open questions of early 2020 and are beginning to vaccinate Americans in large numbers. Significantly though, we also have evidence that our national response did not meet its potential and that many thousands of unnecessary deaths have occurred as a result,” said Dr. Watson. “I am hopeful that our response to the remainder of the pandemic will be much more evidence-based, coordinated, and effective.”
Dr. Watson provided recommendations for the weeks and months ahead:
Read the full testimony. (PDF)