Policy Considerations

Against the complex and interconnected set of issues outlined in this report, key policy considerations must weigh institutional transformation, as much as they weigh civic engagement and whole-of-society mobilization, to speed up post-pandemic recovery. Recovery alone, however, would miss the broader opportunity to mend the many areas of our economy and system that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed to be either frail or broken before this crisis struck.

Against this backdrop, policymakers must weigh the twin obligations of enhancing post-pandemic resilience, while improving the preconditions in the United States for shared prosperity and social equity. Following the largest non-war loss of lives since the Korean War and Depression-era economic intervention, this generation of public and private sector leaders have a unique obligation and opportunity to recast a more hopeful, secure, participatory, and competitive vision of the future.

• Citizen data wallets: National, verifiable, and authenticated wallets for the provision of government and interstitial services, as well as the facilitation of citizen engagement.
• Universal internet access: High-speed, low-cost internet connectivity, not singularly through risk-prone physical infrastructure but via current generation mobile broadband connectivity. The provision of coverage on a national scale, including patching low-connectivity areas, rural communities, among others.
• Low-cost or free hardware access: The provision of essential hardware such as computers and tablets, particularly for vulnerable communities and students in Title 1 schools.
• Omnichannel voting: Universal, omnichannel voting options on a national scale.
• Resilience corps: The amplification of a civilian resilience corps, such as FEMA Corps and AmeriCorps NCCC, to prepare communities to respond to disasters on an all-hazards basis, while enhancing disaster readiness capacity.
• Gap analysis: Reviewing community-level risk, readiness, and resilience gaps in terms of response capacity on an all-hazards basis, including potential economic value at risk and funding gaps in public and private resources.
• National chief risk officer: The establishment of a cabinet-level Chief Risk Officer to set a national strategy for pre-funding a national risk-sharing pool on a risk-weighted basis to shield the public balance sheet from increasingly predictable and devastating losses.
• Economic risk-sharing: The establishment of a strategic risk-sharing fund, aggregating existing national risk-sharing programs, and funding them over the long term via public and private sector measures (e.g. all-hazard catastrophe bonds, insurance, reinsurance, and publicly-funded paid-in capital).
• Healthcare surge capacity: Expansion of healthcare surge capacity, the availability of hospital beds per capita, as well as a national reserve corps of trained medical professionals capable of responding to mass casualty events irrespective of the cause.
• Pandemic preparedness accelerator: The establishment of a DARPA-style project to spur long range preparedness for communicable diseases, biodefense, and rapid development and approvals in vaccinology, mitigation, and treatments.
• Early alert system: Development and deployment of a trusted national and global early alert network for future outbreaks with real-time threat reporting and response capabilities.
• Contact and exposure tracing: Development and deployment of national citizen-level contact tracing and privacy-preserving threat reporting capabilities and early alert frameworks for all-hazard public safety exposures.
• Emerging technologies: Development and deployment of national blockchain or Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)-based land registries supporting disaster proofing and rapid response, for example via geo-referenced disaster declarations.
• Parametric claim triggers: Enablement of national real-time disaster relief capabilities and low-cost parametric insurance capabilities.
• Healthcare cost waivers: Medical insurance and healthcare cost waivers for testing, treatment, and public health compliance.
• Telehealth expansion: Expansion of national, at-home telemedicine, low-cost medical treatment, and pharmaceutical networks.
• Universal healthcare: Expansion of universally available, personally-portable low-cost health care options.
• Debt forgiveness: Establishment of a student loan credit bridge and forgiveness program.
• Credit scoring reset: Resetting credit scores and minimum payment, forgiveness and interest rate structures to restore consumer confidence and not penalize borrowers for defaults with an implied public backstop.
• Free basic banking: Universal free basic banking, with no minimum balance provisions.