PSR Statement to Supporters and the Public March 25, 2020

Slow the Spread. Stay at Home.

We wanted to share with you this important statement issued today by the Board of Directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility:

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) strongly supports the call made yesterday in The New York Times by J. Larry Jameson, the dean of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, writing for himself and on behalf of six other leaders of large academic health systems in some of the locations hardest hit by COVID-19, urging our national leadership to keep in place the social restrictions needed to subdue this outbreak.

We urge our members, colleagues, and allied organizations to continue to support the social distancing measures recommended by public health authorities, and we urge local, state, and national leaders to do the same. Many PSR members and supporters are on the frontlines of health care and public health. They are seeing the daily toll. While we recognize the economic ramifications and significant challenges that social distancing poses for many people in our society, it is the only way to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. If we let that happen, many more lives will be lost as a consequence.

Alan S. Greenglass, MD, President
Jeff Carter, Executive Director

We encourage PSR members and chapters to share this statement widely and to urge your state and local leaders to resist pressure to lift social restrictions until we have substantially contained the virus—through your local media, online, or by contacting your elected officials.

For more information on PSR’s response to COVID-19: www.psr.org/covid