Sen. Michael Bennet's 'Health Force' Could Help With COVID Vaccinations

(CBS4) - A bill by Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat and Colorado's senior senator, could help speed up the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines. The bill is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps that President Franklin D. Roosevelt created after the Great Depression.

Roosevelt put people back to work building public infrastructure like roads, schools and parks like Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre. Sen. Bennet hopes to put people back to work building our public health infrastructure.

Liane Jollon, Executive Director of the San Juan Basin Public Health Department, said the bill would especially help rural communities. The department has a staff of 70 to cover 70,000 residents who are spread out across 3,000 square miles in Archuleta and La Plata Counties.

Jollon said they were stretched thin before COVID-19.

"We've had to repurpose most of our staff to respond to this event and our other activities, our other responsibilities in the community haven't gone away," Jollon said.

She said her staff wears multiple hats these days. Restaurant inspectors took on infection control and her Director of Environmental Health went from overseeing water and air quality to COVID-19 testing and contact tracing.

"That eventually really takes a toll because this is hard work to be doing. We're doing it 50-60-70 hours a week," said Jollon.

San Juan Basin isn't the only place in need of more help. A 2019 study found public health in Colorado is 40% underfunded.

"Some of these counties have single nurse agencies," Jollon explained.

And the demands, she says, aren't letting up.

"We are not done with this pandemic. We say that right now we're at half time," she said.

But, Bennet's bill could be a game changer. He said it would create a Public Health Force by taking those who have lost their jobs to COVID-19 and training them for jobs in public health.

"We're going to end up with 100,000 really well-trained people at the end of this. And it will, in a lot of ways, especially rural places," Bennet said.

In the San Juan Basin, where mountain resort communities have been hit hard by the virus and the shutdown, Jollon said it would be a win-win.

"And at the end of the story, we would leave this pandemic with a workforce that supports that across the whole state and across the whole country," Jollon said.

President Joe Biden likes Sen. Bennet's idea so much that he has included it in his stimulus package, which calls for putting $400 billion to building up public health. The package allocates $8 billion to train 100,000 people for the Public Health Force.