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The AHA yesterday joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other national organizations in urging the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm a district court decision that found the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2005 provides broad immunity from tort liability to health care providers and other covered entities involved in the administration, manufacture, distribution, use or allocation of countermeasures during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Over a decade ago, Congress recognized the possibility of a nationwide public health emergency much like COVID-19, and expressly provided certain protections for those on the front line of responding to it, in the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2005,” the friend-of-the-court brief states. “…Rather than leave the adjudication of disputes arising from a national emergency response to disparate state courts across the country, Congress established an exclusive federal remedial scheme and expressly preempted state law that might interfere with that scheme.”