Fire season could bring complications to states already battling Covid-19
Air pollution from wildfire smoke increases susceptibility to the coronavirus leading to worsened health conditions for both those near fires.
From Politico: How to Redesign the World for Coronavirus and Beyond.
In the months since the coronavirus engulfed the world, it’s become clear that society won’t go back to normal any time soon, if ever.
Yes, states are reopening their economies, but some are seeing serious spikes and shutting back down. And even the “reopened” world looks very different. Restaurants are half-filled; many movie theaters and stadiums remain empty; vacations have turned local. Huge question marks hang over the summer’s presidential conventions and the school year this coming fall. Without a vaccine, and with the virus still spreading around the world, we can’t expect society to resume its former shape anytime soon.
From FedScoop: With a pandemic and hurricane season crushing FEMA, the agency could use some bots
The Federal Emergency Management Agency‘s various grant programs have made more awards more this year than the past 30 years combined, a top official says, and now the agency is considering how robotic process automation (RPA) bots could help improve the payment process.
Why Coronavirus Is an ‘Existential Crisis’ for American Democracy. Danielle Allen has a 2,500-year view of democracies, wrote Harvard’s pandemic resilience road map and thinks American government is like a Ferrari we haven’t learned to drive. But she’s not totally pessimistic: We can take hope, she says, from New Orleans.
This is a good time to reflect on governance issues raised by the response to Covid-19
From Sharecare: America is “Re-opening” But Are You Ready?
From the Wash Post: Americans are living in a big ‘anger incubator.’ Experts have tips for regulating our rage.
According to psychiatrist Joshua Morganstein, the country is now dealing with “three disasters superimposed on top of one another”: the pandemic, the economic fallout and civil unrest. “Certainly, one way of responding, and a common way of responding, is anger,” said Morganstein, who chairs the American Psychiatric Association’s Committee on the Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster.
From the Congressional Research Service, this 41 page document: COVID-19: Potential Implications for International Security Environment—Overview of Issues and Further Reading for Congress
I think SSRN stands for Social Science Research Network. You can register bo be a member at no cost and then use their Coronavirus Hub.
From the NYTimes: New Data Reveals Hidden Flood Risk Across America
Nearly twice as many properties may be susceptible to flood damage than previously thought, according to a new effort to map the danger.
Across much of the United States, the flood risk is far greater than government estimates show, new calculations suggest, exposing millions of people to a hidden threat — and one that will only grow as climate change worsens.
That new calculation, which takes into account sea-level rise, rainfall and flooding along smaller creeks not mapped federally, estimates that 14.6 million properties are at risk from what experts call a 100-year flood, far more than the 8.7 million properties shown on federal government flood maps. A 100-year flood is one with a 1 percent chance of striking in any given year.
Recovery Diva 