COVID-19 Is Not the Only Threat We Face: Emergency Management in the Time of Pandemic

Throughout the Spring and Summer of 2020 the United States was in the midst of a public health crisis unprecedented in the lifetimes of all but a few thousand centenarians. During this time, most of the country was in some stage of self-imposed quarantine, the economy was ravaged, and by the end of September, the death toll exceeded 200,000 (CDC, 2020). At the height of the pandemic, many hospitals quickly reached and then exceeded capacity, healthcare workers were stretched to the breaking point, and resources such as test kits, ventilators, gowns, and masks were in short supply. To prevent the spread of the virus, communities practiced social distancing, wearing face masks, and other practices recommended by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Self-quarantining for 14 days was also recommended if there was reason to believe that a person had been in contact with someone carrying the virus. Demographic factors played a role in vulnerability to the virus with people in poverty, those over 65 years of age, and those of color and ethnicity particularly vulnerable. Although the impacts of COVID-19 have been devastating, an on-going pandemic does not preclude the co-occurrence of other extreme events such as hurricanes, major infrastructure failures, or industrial accidents. During a recent webinair on extreme events and the COVID-19 pandemic sponsored by the National Academies, Jane W. Baldwin of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory observed that an extreme weather event occurring during the COVID-19 outbreak was not unlikely and would create what she termed a “compound extreme event,” that is, “a series of events that are worse than the sum of their parts.” (National Academies, 2020a). Of the many lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps the most transformational is the realization that humans are both a vector of the disease and its victim. The primary transmission mechanism for the virus is human-to-human and until the global outbreak of COVID-19, little attention had been paid to the possibility that a significant number of the critical personnel involved in disaster response and recovery could be incapacitated or otherwise unavailable due to a public health emergency. The effects of this new paradigm have not yet been fully internalized by the emergency management (EM) community but one of the obvious outcomes is that for reasons of safety and effectiveness, the emergency response playbook will need to be rethought. This brief Commentary is