Critical Releases in Homeland Security: December 30, 2020

From the Foreword: "I am pleased to announce the release of the National Preparedness Report (NPR). Every year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) releases this report to provide a picture of how prepared the Nation is to prevent, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the impacts of any disaster, as well as ensure the continuity of lifelines, essential functions, and services. Through the NPR, FEMA hopes to inspire action by the whole community--including individuals; communities; state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) governments; the private and non-profit sectors; and the Federal Government--to increase capabilities and make us more resilient, prepared, and ready to address any challenges that we as a Nation may face. National preparedness is the responsibility of all levels of our society, including individuals, local governments, the private sector, and the Federal Government. The world this report has been released into is forever changed by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic, the largest pandemic in human history since the 1918 influenza pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the first ever Stafford Act major disaster declaration of all 50 states, five territories, and the District of Columbia for a naturally occurring infectious disease, and has altered the way of life for people across the world."

From the Executive Summary: "The Federal Mission Resilience Strategy (hereafter, 'Strategy') builds on existing continuity policy to accelerate the evolution of our Federal Government to become more resilient against all threats and conditions through an enduring structure of distributed risk and capabilities. The Strategy was developed in response to direction from the National Security Council Principals Committee and supports the National Security Strategy by refocusing national continuity policy implementation to better address emerging threats to the performance of essential functions and services. Federal Mission Resilience is the ability of the Federal executive branch to continuously maintain the capability and capacity to perform essential functions and services, without time delay, regardless of threats or conditions, and with the understanding that adequate warning of a threat may not be available. Federal Mission Resilience will be realized when preparedness programs, including continuity and enterprise risk management, are fully integrated into day-to-day operations of the Federal executive branch. The Strategy model of 'Assess, Distribute, and Sustain' reduces the reliance on reactive relocation of personnel to alternate locations and emphasizes a more proactive full-time posture of distribution and as necessary, devolution to minimize disruptions to essential functions and services. This shift in policy implementation is supported by three lines of effort (LOE). Through these LOEs, Federal executive branch Principals will drive efforts within their components to increase the capability and capacity to continuously perform essential functions and services to mitigate against all threats, including adversarial actions and regional disruptions."

From the Executive Summary: "Acts of targeted violence against houses of worship (HoWs) are a real--and potentially growing--problem in the United States and a top priority for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As the Nation's risk advisor, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) prepared this guide to help faith-based organizations (FBOs) develop a comprehensive security strategy for adoption to the unique circumstances of every church, mosque, synagogue, temple, and other sites of religious practice across the country. To better understand the nature of the problem, CISA drew on open source research to compile 37 incidents of targeted violence covering the ten-year period from 2009 to 2019. The analysis drawn from these case studies directly informs the guidance presented here and reveals several noteworthy trends."

From the Executive Summary: "Covid-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] vaccines have arrived, with enough supply to vaccinate as many as 50 million people by the end of January. But these initial doses will do little in the short term to arrest an epidemic that is raging out of control. The United States is now reporting more than one million new coronavirus cases every week, hospitals are nearing capacities, and daily death tolls are at record levels. More Americans are now 'dying every day' from Covid-19 than died in the terrorist attacks of 9/11 -- a rate of nearly 100,000 people per month. Meanwhile, American families have reached the end of their endurance, the economy may be sliding into another slowdown, and many children have lost nearly a year of schooling. The country cannot afford another six months of paralysis with schools and businesses widely shuttered while vaccines are manufactured and distributed. [...] [F]ar more must be done to slow the catastrophic spread of Covid-19, including fixing and augmenting the nation's testing system -- still plagued by supply constraints and delays. Such problems are the main reasons tests continue to be used mostly in people with symptoms or those in recent contact with someone with Covid-19. That is not enough. Instead of being reactive, testing must become a proactive tool to find asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infected individuals before they pass along their infections to others."