Every gap in health coverage threatens to accelerate COVID-19’s spread. If the estimated 87 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured delay testing or treatment due to cost, we will struggle to “flatten the curve” of the pandemic no matter how well we socially distance. Our health system may well collapse under the weight of COVID-19 cases, as did the health systems in Northern Italy and China’s Hubei Province. If this happens, we will run out of ventilators for those who need them, while our capacity for routine lifesaving interventions, like stents for people who have heart attacks and emergency surgeries for trauma victims, will be curtailed.

Our inadequate preparation for COVID-19 extends beyond the lack of guaranteed health care for all. Years of underfunding the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and its laboratories impedes our ability to track, confirm, and intercept cases. Furthermore, chronic disinvestment from local and state departments of health prevents us from addressing emerging health crises and communicating vital information to communities. This lack of investment in public health infrastructure is symptomatic of a system oriented toward covering individuals rather than communities. Our vulnerabilities speak to our health system’s broad misallocation of resources.

We should recognize this misallocation, now dramatically highlighted by COVID-19, and fight for a collective approach that pivots the focus toward community health. Such a shift would mean moving resources toward more robust disease prevention through the CDC and overdue investments in the social and structural determinants that hold sway over our health, while also guaranteeing that every person can access health care when they need to.