GAO Issues Recommendations for Federal Agencies to Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its sixth report to review the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The non-partisan watchdog claims there is a major lack of federal action on COVID-19 response, especially in terms of vaccine distribution, for which the U.S. still does not have a comprehensive plan. Previously, GAO had issued 31 recommendations for the government to implement in response to the pandemic. By January 2021, 27 of these recommendations had not been followed.

GAO issued 13 new recommendations to improve agencies’ pandemic response efforts, including the development of a national testing strategy. The report highlights that at the end of 2020, there were 10.7 million unemployed Americans. Until the pandemic can be contained, this number is expected to increase, preventing economic growth.

One of the recommendations outlined in the report is the need for the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response to establish a process for engaging for Congress and nonfederal stakeholders to refine a supply chain strategy for pandemic preparedness and include the role of the Strategic National Stockpile. Another recommendation made by GAO calls for the establishment of a diverse, expert committee to monitor ongoing data collection and issue reporting standards for key health indicators.

Furthermore, the report calls for the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health to determine what additional data may be needed from employers or other sources to better target the agency's COVID-19 enforcement efforts. This way, agencies can find out what they are doing best and what they could be doing better to combat the pandemic.

A fourth key recommendation made by the GAO report calls for the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health to ensure that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Information System includes comprehensive information on use of the agency's COVID-19-adapted enforcement methods sufficient to inform its oversight processes for these methods.

A full list of recommendations can be found here. Almost all of them are focused on streamlining agencies’ COVID-19 responses and ensuring oversight and accountability in the process.

Just following inauguration day, the Biden administration released The National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness, which outlines a comprehensive plan with several goals that the Biden administration plans to use to curb the pandemic.