Emergency medical service (EMS) personnel, including community paramedics (CPs), were at the center of the early medical response to the COVID-19 pandemic and continued to play critical roles throughout the public health emergency. Beginning with the pandemic’s onset in March 2020, these essential health care workers bore the burden of responding to the public’s initial reactions to a disease about which little was known and remained at the forefront of evolving treatment and safety protocols as new information continually emerged.

This report discusses the perspectives of 17 key informant experts on how the EMS and CP workforces responded to COVID-19 during the first year of the pandemic and how well-being challenges continue to affect these workforces.