By Anke Richter Until 2020, public health had an uneasy relationship with the majority of the homeland security establishment. Unlike first responders and the medical establishment (hospitals, doctors, nurses, and ambulances) which focus on securing and saving individuals, public health focuses on the population as a whole. This societal perspective is different, difficult, and requires…
Posts Tagged with Public Health and Safety
Federal Agencies and Governmental Partnerships in Public Health Emergency Management: Implications for Continued COVID-19 Preparedness and Response
By Kevin L. Pohlman, David S. Markenson, Abigail Marriott, Jake Feingold, Jason Kreinces, Jonah Lowenstein, Rajkumar Pammal and Sacha Roberts Abstract The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has tested the global governmental and public agency response to pandemic emergencies with regard to a number of areas. This essay focuses on major agency involvement in the United…
Warnings Unheeded, Again: What the Intelligence Lessons of 9/11 Tell Us about the Coronavirus Today
By Erik Dahl Abstract This article argues that the coronavirus pandemic represents a global intelligence failure on the part of the traditional intelligence community as well as the national and international medical intelligence and surveillance systems designed to detect and prevent outbreaks just such as this one. Comparing these failures with intelligence failures of the…
COVID-19 Effects and Russian Disinformation Campaigns
By Wesley R. Moy and Kacper Gradon Abstract The effects of the novel coronavirus and its related disease COVID-19 have been far reaching, touching American society and its Western partners’ health and mortality, economics, social relationships, and politics. The effects have highlighted longstanding societal divisions, disproportionately harming minority groups and the socioeconomically disadvantaged with Black…
Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 Response vs. Homeland Security Frameworks and Research: Masking the Whole Community
By Alexander Siedschlag Abstract This essay offers an intermediate discussion of select policy, strategic, operational, and tactical issues that demonstrate where and how the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s novel coronavirus response on the one hand, and homeland security frameworks and research on the other, converge or—more often so—diverge, and how to narrow this gap. Although typically…
The Role of Elected Executives in Pandemic Response: Reflections from Salt Lake County
By David Schuld Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic rages on across the country, with many areas feeling pressure due to the length of the virus’ wrath and the associated fatigue of response for all members of the community. As communities look to winter months, where their residents and businesses begin to move indoors, and the threat…
Toward a Science-Based Management Approach to Stealth Threats: A Case Study Using The Novel Coronavirus
By Thomas J. Mackin Abstract The modest early stage impact of slow-moving threats makes it easy to underestimate their impact. These threats grow and evolve unnoticed until reaching dramatic impacts in both scope and scale. Since slow-moving threats can grow to catastrophic magnitudes that threaten our very survival, they are more aptly identified as ‘stealth…
Pandemic Policy and the Logistics of COVID-19 Mass Vaccination
By Thomas Russo Abstract The sudden emergence of the H1N1 Pandemic in 2009 tested the nation’s pandemic plans. It was learned that the nation did not have a well-defined, tested and reliable twenty-first century vaccine distribution system. The existing planning model, the public health model of the 1950s and 1960s served as the basis for…
Two Transformations In, USCIS Confronts Further Change in Post-Pandemic Future
By Michael S. Locke Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic both upended the day-to-day workings of U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) and presented an opportunity to reexamine where policy and practice impede future productivity. The agency has already undertaken two transformations in the first two decades of this century, to varying success: its reestablishment as an…
Wearables: Useful Sentinels of Our Health?
By Matthew S. Austin Abstract As U.S. Coast Guard units develop strategies and policies aimed at safely reconstituting forces in the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ability to identify and isolate personnel who may be infected as early as possible is critical to protecting the organization’s most critical resource. Existing wearable technologies provide…