Critical Releases in Homeland Security: April 22, 2020

From the Introduction: "Effective disaster financial management is critical for successful response and recovery. It helps jurisdictions obtain the resources needed to support their communities, increases the efficiency of recovery efforts and reduces the likelihood of audits and financial penalties for the jurisdiction. Fiscal and grant regulations are strict and apply to all jurisdictions, regardless of size, so it is imperative that all jurisdictions have robust scalable, flexible and adaptable disaster financial management plans and processes in place pre-disaster for all types of incidents."

From the Abstract: "We extend the canonical epidemiology model to study the interaction between economic decisions and epidemics. Our model implies that peoples decision to cut back on consumption and work reduces the severity of the epidemic, as measured by total deaths. These decisions exacerbate the size of the recession caused by the epidemic. The competitive equilibrium is not socially optimal because infected people do not fully internalize the effect of their economic decisions on the spread of the virus. In our benchmark model, the best simple containment policy increases the severity of the recession but saves roughly half a million lives in the U.S."

From the Summary: "Pandemics sicken and kill people in three ways: first by overwhelming patients' immune defenses, then by swamping hospital networks, and eventually by cutting off a community's economic lifeblood. Hence, 'saving lives or saving the economy' is a false choice. As of April 19, Covid-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] had directly killed more than 163,000 people worldwide, including nearly 35,000 in the United States. But the indirect effects are still being counted. The Great Recession of 2008, for instance, killed people in the thousands by disrupting healthcare for mothers, children and those with chronic illnesses and increasing a host of deadly mental and social conditions like alcoholism, depression and domestic abuse. With the first wave of infections from the Covid-19 pandemic cresting in much of the country, American political and business leaders rightly are considering plans to reopen the economy. This Action Plan is intended to serve as a resource guide for that all-important project. [...] The goal of the Action Plan is to build a state-led national program of Covid-19 testing that supports reopening the economy through the goals of workforce monitoring, early detection of recurrent outbreaks, and diagnostic and home testing. This would be the largest public health testing program in American history. Success will depend on the active engagement of the government, business, philanthropy, and the public."

From the Abstract: "This white paper notes the novel law enforcement challenges created by COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] and describes the different approach police must take in light of these challenges in order to serve their traditional public safety function. Traditional law enforcement practices such as stops, searches, and arrests currently create a substantial risk of infection for police, suspects and community members alike. We conclude that until stay-at-home and social distancing orders have been lifted, law enforcement agencies should suspend enforcement measures requiring close proximity or physical contact between law enforcement personnel and members of the public, except in cases where the failure to stop, search, or arrest a suspect creates an imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury to police officers or others. In particular, stay-at-home orders should not be enforced through arrests; instead, police should give oral or written warnings whenever possible, and the police role should focus on public education and connecting citizens to essential services."

From the Executive Summary: "We need to deliver 5 million tests per day by early June to deliver a safe social reopening. This number will need to increase over time (ideally by late July) to 20 million a day to fully remobilize the economy. We acknowledge that even this number may not be high enough to protect public health. In that considerably less likely eventuality, we will need to scale-up testing much further. By the time we know if we need to do that, we should be in a better position to know how to do it. In any situation, achieving these numbers depends on testing innovation. [...] This policy roadmap lays out how massive testing plus contact tracing plus social isolation with strong social supports, or TTSI, can rebuild trust in our personal safety and the safety of those we love. This will in turn support a renewal of mobility and mobilization of the economy. This paper is designed to educate the American public about what is emerging as a consensus national strategy."