Magnolia State News

The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health issue, John Chamberlain notes.

That’s why Chamberlain believes healthcare workers need to speak out on America's reaction to it, and what course they should take moving forward.

“While I am not a doctor, I have been in healthcare for over 45 years, primarily as an executive in hospitals, physician practices, health insurance and others,” he told Magnolia State News.

John Chamberlain | Submitted

Chamberlain has a BA in biological sciences from Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., and a master’s in health administration from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

“I joined the Restore American Communities Safely Coalition because we need to hear from medical professionals, business professionals and patients in the field, as opposed to those individuals in ivory towers and the compromised media that spew the same story line day after day,” he said. “We in the real world, physicians and business people alike, know what needs to be done, who we need to focus on (the elderly and immunocompromised for instance) instead of this mass hysteria that we have been dealt. Which, by the way, for the most part has been found to be misleading, if not downright untruthful.”

The Restore American Communities Safely is a coalition of doctors, scientists, public health officials, economists and social scientists who say they are “uniting to get the country and the economy back on its feet.” 

Chamberlain said while it is a new organization, it has earned good feedback so far.

“I think the response to the coalition has been very positive, as evidenced by the renewed focus on common sense like the Job Creators Network recent spot, “Flatten the Fear," he said..

Chamberlain is “retired,” but remains heavily involved in patient and physician advocacy work through Citizen Health, where he serves as board chairman and the Free2Care Coalition, which represents over 8 million people, including more than 70,000 physicians.

“Government has been inserting itself in health care for far too long and needs to leave medicine to those professionals with the training and experience to make it affordable and accessible, especially in this day and age,” Chamberlain said.

He said the country needs to completely reopen.

“I supported the earlier lockdowns to a degree, especially in proven hot spots, but believe that we are way past that now,” Chamberlain said. “For the reasons mentioned above, related to where and who we need to focus on, I believe it is definitely time to reopen the country as the lockdowns themselves have negative consequences, clinically and financially, especially in those areas of the country that have little caseload of Covid-19."

“The public needs to follow common-sense guidelines as mentioned above. While COVID-19 may indeed be slightly more contagious than the common flu, the same guidelines apply,” he said. “Don’t pay attention to all the hype, filter out the noise and apply common sense.”

That has been what he has done.

“My personal experience with COVID-19 has been one of appropriate precautions, monitoring my own health and taking appropriate basic precautions (as with any contagious disease like the flu) such as frequent hand-washing, limiting physical contact like handshaking, reduced facial contact and masking in questionable settings,” Chamberlain said.