The National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) received a flood of emails at the beginning of the pandemic requesting information on how to deal with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) concerns from a regulatory point of view and how to reopen businesses once the pandemic subsided. There continues to be a scarcity of guidance and protocols around environmental health needs during this unique time. When this was added to the fact that each jurisdiction was facing these concerns in its own way, a major problem loomed. Not every jurisdiction is created equal—or more appropriately, is funded equally—yet everyone is faced with deciding how to inspect and reopen businesses to get us back to normal. The result is that everyone is using a lot of resources to solve the same problem. There must be a better way.
This column is about basic concepts and solutions. It is about core ideas and responsibilities from different perspectives that could spark a dialogue (at least an internal one) around some of our common food safety and regulatory problems. The column is not about negating or minimizing the complex world in which we live and must function, and there is no pretense that we will say anything profound. We just want to communicate basic ideas.