COVID-19, Climate Change and Public Health
The COVID-19 pandemic and an historic wildfire season have exposed a chronically under-resourced public health sector and vulnerability to the growing impacts of climate change.
Over 7.5 million people have contracted COVID-19 with 211,000 deaths. The pandemic has dramatically impacted the U.S. economy with nearly 8% unemployment and 14 million residents applying for unemployment insurance coverage since April. As a result, food banks are experiencing record demand, millions are unable to pay their rent/mortgage and at-risk of eviction and hundreds of thousands of small businesses may be forced to permanently close.
An historic wildfire season has presented a second major crisis for millions of residents in several western states including California. Many in the immediate path of fires have been forced to evacuate and traditional places of refuge such as schools, community centers and churches are less available and/or safe due to concerns of COVID-19 transmission. Extreme poor air quality from wildfire smoke impacted communities from southern California to the Canadian border, and is especially hazardous to those with preexisting respiratory illnesses, who are already at greatest risk if infected by COVID-19.
The scale of wildfires in California is unprecedented with over 4 million acres burned in 2020 (thus far), a single year record and more than the last three years combined. The effects of climate change such as warmer temperatures, more extreme heat events, shifting precipitation patterns and drier forests, when combined with high winds, create ideal conditions for catastrophic wildfires. Climate scientists project overall warming, the frequency of extreme heat events and severe wildfire seasons to accelerate in the future. This presents enormous challenges for government agencies stretched thin by declining resources.
Public health has been especially hard hit in recent years. State and local health departments have lost over 55,000 positions due to funding cuts since 2010. The United States spends $3.6 trillion on healthcare each year, but only 3% is allocated for public health and prevention. COVID-19 response has suffered from inadequate trained staff to implement testing sites, conduct contact tracing, develop multi-lingual information and resources, complete outreach in especially vulnerable communities etc.
Strengthening our public agencies is a critical step towards building the capacity necessary to better address future climate change and public health challenges.