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# Kessler Calls for ‘New Social Contract’ on Covid-19
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/kessler-calls-for-new-social-contract-on-covid-19/
- Published: 2020-04-20T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T16:11:57.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: FDA Policy/General, #legacy-id-D5146599

*\[Report by Jim Dickinson\]* Likening the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic to the peril we defeated in World War II, former FDA commissioner **David A. Kessler** 4/20 called for a “new social contract” that reduces our usual interpersonal contacts by two-thirds until the virus spread stops. In a [*New York Times op-ed*](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-social-contract.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage&ref=fdaweb.com), FDA’s most transformative modern leader wrote that Americans “need to face this fact: Returning to our old reality will be a slow and frustrating process that will take many months and require deep wells of patience. We will not be fully free until we have a vaccine.”

In addition to reducing usual contacts by two-thirds, Kessler urged everyone to wear face masks in public, distance themselves, and to consider wearing gloves and washing hands frequently if touching surfaces on public transportation and stores. “We can’t cram people into buses, trains, subways and airplanes like we once did,” he wrote. “Mass transit agencies and airlines will require subsidies to run more buses, trains and planes with fewer people on board. Strict protocols for cleaning these conveyances must be put in place. Conductors and flight attendants will need proper face masks.”

Kessler stressed the importance of introducing a new Covid-19 testing strategy. “Priority needs to be given to areas where we think the virus is most likely circulating, based on surveillance testing. We need millions of tests a day, not the hundreds of thousands of tests being done now. This is achievable, but will require commandeering the large laboratory testing facilities in the country and invoking the Defense Protection Act to assure swabs, reagents, testing equipment and other supplies are at the ready.”

Again invoking the wartime analogy, Kessler wrote that the private sector must be mustered “to manufacture enough protective personal gear for all health workers and others who need it, and effective masks for the public. American factories should be using their collective productivity 24/7 to do this.”