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In a pandemic recession an extraordinary monetary policy – helicopter money – can be considered. If we define helicopter money as a monetization of irredeemable fiscal transfers to citizens that produces losses in the central bank balance sheet, and an independent central bank acts as a long-sighted policymaker, an optimal helicopter monetary policy can be identified. Yet, if the government in charge is made up of career-concerned politicians and citizens are heterogenous, the policy mix will produce distributional effects, and conflicts between politicians and central bankers will be likely. Political pressures will arise and the optimal helicopter money option will be less likely. The framework is applied in a discussion of the economics and politics of issuing COVID-19 perpetual bonds with the European Central Bank as the buyer.

Medicaid, which provides health insurance to low-income Americans, is a joint federal-state partnership that manifests as 50 unique state programs. States have policy flexibility to design programs within federal parameters. However, Medicaid also requires funding flexibility to encourage states to maintain services during times of crisis when more people need Medicaid. Currently, Medicaid’s funding formula, the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP), adjusts federal spending by state levels of economic development but fails to adjust for nationwide recessions. During economic contractions, the federal government should use its ability to run budget deficits to reimburse states at higher rates in exchange for maintaining services. In turn, during economic expansions, states should shoulder relatively more costs of Medicaid. Although the current FMAP boost provided under the...

The Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator is short of billions of dollars, and the funds committed so far are skewed towards vaccines, with little for health systems. Ann Danaiya Usher reports.Weak health systems buckling under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic have received little support from donors in the global pandemic response. Germany, France, and Kuwait are the only countries that have earmarked parts of their contributions to the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) for health systems. Of the total US$5·8 billion contributed by donors to ACT-A so far, $3·9 billion have gone to support vaccine procurement and distribution in low-income and middle-income countries, while just 6% is reserved for health-care systems. ACT-A must raise at least $28 billion over the coming year to ensure that low-income and middle-income countries have the resources to fight the...

Producing evidence in epidemics is crucial to control the current epidemic and prevent its recurrence in the future. Data must be collected and analyzed rapidly to recognize the most efficient and feasible methods with proper timelines. However, there are many challenges a research system may encounter during a crisis. This article has presented lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic for health research system (HRS) to deal with current and future crises. Therefore, a HRS needs to produce and use evidence in such a situation. The components Knowledge Translation Self-Assessment Tool for Research Institutes (SATORI) framework was used to review the actions required and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in a national HRS. This framework consists of four categories of defining the research question, conducting research, translating the research results, and promoting the use of...

As countries confront and adapt to the impact of COVID-19, policymakers, public health officials and political leaders have rallied around one word: resilience. Resilience often narrowly focuses on ‘bouncing back’ to normal as quickly as possible, without critically assessing whether the pre-shock normal should be aspired to (Ebi and Semenza, 2008; Houston, 2015). We argue that the COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity for health systems to address the long-standing structural inequalities it reinforces, and the environmental sustainability it undermines, to work towards transformative resilience, or ‘transilience’ (Pelling, 2010) .Health systems resilience is an emerging concept that is generally understood as ‘the capacity of health actors, institutions, and populations to prepare for and effectively respond to crises; maintain core functions when a crisis hits; and,...

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was declared on March 11, 2020, which led to the massive economic and social crisis in the world. Hospitals and healthcare systems faced the most changes during this time. As for any other medical departments, orthopedic departments were affected by this situation. Trauma and musculoskeletal injuries require emergency action or even operation which would not stop due to COVID-19 crisis. Special protocols and guidelines were used to minimize infection risks in Kashani educational trauma center. Here we explain the changes and protocols in the following sections: Outpatient-Clinic, emergency department, Operation room and Orthopedic Ward. These strategies included: reducing the number of admitted patients in clinics, changing the decoration of waiting rooms, screening the patients at the entrance and personal protection equipment for staff....

It will soon be one year since the detection of the first cases of COVID-19 and the identification of the novel SARS-COV-2 virus. Since then this complex crisis with interlinked public health, social, political, and economic dimensions has tested the world’s capacity to respond. Several lessons from COVID-19 are directly relevant to tackling the climate emergency and advancing sustainable development more broadly.First, the COVID-19 pandemic shows that the scientific community can generate huge amounts of new, practical knowledge in record time. Remarkably, new specifically designed COVID therapy (as opposed to repurposed drugs) and several vaccines are already in phase III trials or approved for early or limited use. (New York Times, 2020; University of Oxford. Ran, 2019).As of 13 October, Pubmed, the publications database focused on biomedicine and health sciences, returns over...

The coronavirus disease-2019, known as COVID-19, has affected >30 million people globally, leading to >900,000 deaths.1 Many health care systems have faced significant challenges in providing care for overwhelming numbers of patients due to resource constraints. The UK is one of the most affected countries, and, by 17 September 2020, 381,614 people were confirmed COVID-19 positive, 41,705 had died, and 13,710 had been admitted to critical care.1,2 Acute kidney injury was reported in 25% to 78% of critically ill patients and approximately 25% required renal replacement therapy (RRT).2,S1‒S3London was the epicenter for infection in the UK and, as cases surged, there was an unprecedented increase in demand for RRT. This demand rapidly outstripped the commercial availability of RRT fluids, consequently leading to critical shortages in some parts of the world, including India, New York,...

India reported its first case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on 30th January 2020. The Indian Government declared nationwide lockdown on 25th March 2020, which continued till 31st May 2020 [1]. Thereafter, most of the country was opened with some relaxations except in red zones and containment areas. The lockdown has been essential in building government capacity to test and treat COVID-19 patients and manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE). There have also been public awareness campaigns regarding social distancing, face mask use, hand and respiratory hygiene and judicious use of public places. After the initial panic, the healthcare workers have now equipped themselves with knowledge about diagnosing and treating COVID-19 and proper use of PPE. However, it is clear that the lockdown is not a long-term solution and prolonged curbs to healthcare can have long lasting...