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The Pennsylvania Department of Health wants to stretch its muscles with regard to its ability to investigate public health emergencies and disease.
It's an idea that might be worrisome if you are concerned about government overreach. It's also an idea that makes sense given large-scale crises like the measles outbreak going on right now.
While measles is a disease all but wiped out in the United States years ago, it is experiencing a resurgence. Pennsylvania is seeing the second-largest outbreak in the country with 577 cases, 115 of them just over the last week.
A big part of the measles response includes what the department wants to address with these changes -- the ability to do better contact tracing. One provision is to compel schools to allow health officials to meet with students privately and for those schools not to interfere with investigations.
There has been expected pushback, like that of state Rep. Jesse Topper, R-Bedford, the House minority leader.
"These are not laws. These are bureaucratic regulations created by people who are not elected," Topper said.
Topper is not wrong about that. However, the department's leadership was appointed by Gov. Josh Shapiro, so it isn't like they were just responding to a help-wanted ad.
While the issue seems to be boiling down to a tug-of-war between public safety and civil liberties, that recognizable refrain should bring us to another point.
Why now?
There was arguably no better example of the use of contact tracing than covid-19. Indeed, most people might not have been familiar with the phrase before 2020.
But here we are in 2026, about to head into flu season, facing off against a childhood disease previously beaten into near-extinction, and now we think maybe the rules should be changed?
Schools were a battleground over pandemic issues for several years. With covid, there were protests. There was picketing. There were those who embraced restrictions and those who fought them. School districts became political incubators.
Finding a way to deal with schools and parents on all sides of the conversation should have been a top priority for the department for six years and two administrations.
These are important points that deserve discussion and consideration. They should be negotiated rationally. And it must be noted some of the discussion is not about new power but a clarification of what power already exists and how it can be best utilized.
Health, especially children's health, is not a topic that should be approached with panic and politics. It needs to be addressed with logic and open minds.
That's why this conversation would have been better about three years ago.