Depends on the event and the agency involved. Since I span several fields (especially since I've officially "retired") I see responses from a number of state Emergency Management departments, especially for weather phenomena. At the EM level, most people are attuned to natural disasters. At the Health Dept. most are attuned to infectious…
Depends on the event and the agency involved. Since I span several fields (especially since I've officially "retired") I see responses from a number of state Emergency Management departments, especially for weather phenomena. At the EM level, most people are attuned to natural disasters. At the Health Dept. most are attuned to infectious disease and outbreak. That said, leadership in those departments, and above, are often skeptical of what's happened in the past. This was manifested in the political response to SARS-CoV-2. On the other hand, the creation of an influenza task force, by Pres. George W. Bush, was because he had read about the 1918 Pandemic and was concerned that the Country was ill-prepared, in part because we'd not seen something similar and had lost our corporate knowledge of how to cope with such an event. The Obama Administration maintained the team, although a number dispersed, as well as the plan. The Trump Administration folded it into the National Security Advisor's portfolio, but the plan itself was parted out to other areas of the administration for any required action, which diluted its effect and led to the US having, essentially, no plan.
The current pandemic is creating an environment where there's interest from the EU, WHO, US, and a number of other countries, in documenting what happened and creating a plan, ahead of time, that can be immediately referenced. This sort of planning will likely be crucial for the next outbreak, especially if it's as transmissible (or more so) and virulent as SARS-CoV-2.
Depends on the event and the agency involved. Since I span several fields (especially since I've officially "retired") I see responses from a number of state Emergency Management departments, especially for weather phenomena. At the EM level, most people are attuned to natural disasters. At the Health Dept. most are attuned to infectious disease and outbreak. That said, leadership in those departments, and above, are often skeptical of what's happened in the past. This was manifested in the political response to SARS-CoV-2. On the other hand, the creation of an influenza task force, by Pres. George W. Bush, was because he had read about the 1918 Pandemic and was concerned that the Country was ill-prepared, in part because we'd not seen something similar and had lost our corporate knowledge of how to cope with such an event. The Obama Administration maintained the team, although a number dispersed, as well as the plan. The Trump Administration folded it into the National Security Advisor's portfolio, but the plan itself was parted out to other areas of the administration for any required action, which diluted its effect and led to the US having, essentially, no plan.
The current pandemic is creating an environment where there's interest from the EU, WHO, US, and a number of other countries, in documenting what happened and creating a plan, ahead of time, that can be immediately referenced. This sort of planning will likely be crucial for the next outbreak, especially if it's as transmissible (or more so) and virulent as SARS-CoV-2.