Critical Releases in Homeland Security: March 25, 2020

From the Overview: "Since the World Health Organization (WHO) first declared Covid-19 a world health emergency in January 2020, the virus has been detected in over 150 countries and almost all U.S. states. The infection has sickened more than 200,000 people, with thousands of fatalities. On March 11, the WHO announced that the outbreak was officially a pandemic, the highest level of health emergency. During that time, it has become clear that the outbreak is negatively impacting global economic growth. The virus is affecting a broad swath of economic activities, from tourism, medical supplies and other global value chains, consumer electronics, and financial markets to energy, food, and a range of social activities, to name a few. Without a clear understanding of when the health and economic effects may peak economic forecasts must necessarily be considered preliminary. Efforts to reduce social interaction to contain the spread of the virus are disrupting the daily lives of most Americans."

From the Document: "The attached list identifies workers who conduct a range of operations and services that are essential to continued critical infrastructure viability, including staffing operations centers, maintaining and repairing critical infrastructure, operating call centers, working construction, and performing management functions, among others. The industries they support represent, but are not necessarily limited to, medical and healthcare, telecommunications, information technology systems, defense, food and agriculture, transportation and logistics, energy, water and wastewater, law enforcement, and public works."