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IU McKinney School of Law Professors Nicolas P. Terry and Ross D. Silverman are among 50 top legal experts who have convened to offer a new assessment of the U.S. policy response to the crisis, COVID-19 Policy Playbook: Legal Recommendations for a Safer, More Equitable Future, and recommend policy solutions at all levels of government, as the nation works to quell the current crisis and carry out plans to rebuild.

Sponsored by the de Beaumont Foundation and the American Public Health Association, this report updates and expands the initial rapid COVID legal assessment the experts published in August 2020.

A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors include proposals on how to strengthen executive leadership for a stronger emergency response, expand access to public health, health care and telehealth; fortify protections for workers; and implement a fair and humane immigration policy.

The assessment details how policymakers can best respond to and recover from the current pandemic and reimagine the nation’s health care and public health systems to better prepare the nation for future infectious disease outbreaks. Throughout, the authors explore what legal frameworks could help dismantle the structures of racism and inequality that produce unjust health outcomes now and may prevent the nation from successfully navigating similar crises in the future.

Terry, Hall Render Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Hall Center for Law and Health at IU McKinney, is one of the Report’s editors. In addition to writing “Summary of Findings and Recommendations for Action” with editor colleagues, he authored “Liability, Liability Shields, and Waivers,” and coauthored another chapter, “Improving Data Collection and Management.”

Professor Silverman, Professor Public Health and Law at IU McKinney and Professor of Health Policy and Management at the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI, is author of  “Contact Tracing, Intrastate and Interstate Quarantine, and Isolation.”