From the HuffPost: America Is Not Set Up For This. Experts have been predicting a global flu pandemic for years. So why was the U.S. so unprepared for coronavirus?
For more on the topic of the vulnerabilities of the national emergency management systems, see the recent book by Rubin and Cutter noted here a few months ago. It was reviewed here by Don Watson in January.
From HSDL, this article about work at Harvard University: Ethics of COVID-19 Response and the Way Forward
The Harvard unit is new to me, but there definitely are a number of important ethical issues that should be explored.
From Bloomberg: Washington Needs to Embrace Its Role as Ultimate Risk Manager. Get over it, Mitch McConnell. Our government has to manage the risk of a pandemic, and it needs to get better at it.
The actions that the federal, state and local governments in the U.S. have taken to stop the spread of the new coronavirus and to mitigate the resulting economic fallout have been tagged with the term “unprecedented” a lot over the past few weeks. In sheer scale and speed, they are. But government’s role as risk manager in a crisis isn’t new at all. It dates to the beginnings of the nation.
Coronavirus Emergency Management Best Practices.
The FEMA Coronavirus Emergency Management Best Practices page contains resources for all levels of government, private sector, academic institutions, professional associations, and other organizations responding to the pandemic
From the WashPost: Government is everywhere now. Where does it go next?
The Diva has been tracking this article and offers it up here because she thinks the information provides important context for the virus crisis.
From BloombergNews: Haphazard Reopening Risks Public Health and Economy. A stop-go-stop pattern might work, but it would more likely be a medical and business setback.
From GovTech: Coronavirus: Gaps in Preparedness, Coordination Costing Lives
“You have to have uniform guidance across the country and ideally, across the globe where you have to have coordination of supply chain, so you don’t’ have every state over-ordering for the worst-case scenario …”
From HSToday: COVID-19 Pandemic Plus the Big One: Preparing for a Disaster Double-Punch. An exceprt:
Let’s end on a positive note, which we adamantly believe. We’ll eventually get through whatever this pandemic, Mother Nature, or anything else throws at us next. Not because we have no choice. But because we can. And because we always have.
But let’s be primed to go big, go fast, and be nimble. Because we kept planning.
I do not usually inject my personal views in this blog, but as a person who has spent more than 40 years in the field of emergency management – as a researcher, adjunct professor, consultant, practitioner – I am truly concerned about how President Trump is mismanaging the response to and slow recovery from COVID-19.
Much of my past work has involved sharing the experience and expertise of the U.S., sometimes with other countries. Presently, the U.S. is a dreadful model. I can only hope that things get corrected here in the near future.
These thoughts were triggered by reading this article in the WashPost: Directions on Safely Reopening the County Must Come from Credible Officials Not Trump.
Recovery Diva 