The challenge of public health is that our political benefit is to respond to something rather than to prevent, and I think that's the question of inertia. If we had prevented all the cases of COVID, people would ask why we were making such a big deal about it. Before things get bad, you need people in places of decision-making who can understand the potential for really significant outcomes and significant events. It think that's part of what I'm proposing—this reordering of the public health experts actually being in the places to make those decisions.
On May 7th, 2021. See this statement in context.