I'm sure for all of us, this past ASA year was two years – BC and AC: Before Covid and After Covid. We could not have imagined how disruptive it would be to our personal lives, our professional lives, and all of society, in the U.S. and around the world. Especially in the U.S., we were unprepared for managing a health pandemic. The initial surge taxed our health care system capabilities for intensive care, our traditional supply chains, and the sufficiency of our workforce. This past year, ASA was here to help its members through COVID.
What lessons have we learned? It has become clear that we're not going to have “recovery” from a “crisis,” but instead, it will be ongoing disease, with repeating flares. Now, we have a better idea how to be prepared for a COVID environment. We've learned that success needs regional health care-wide cooperation so we...