“Coronavirus: The four stages of a global pandemic” | The Economic Times article is a very succinct look at the four stages: Over the past few months, the world has been hit by a large scale viral outbreak – coronavirus – that causes covid-19. India has already reported over 950 cases of the virus, and as cases look like rising further, here are the stages of a pandemic and what they entail.

Crimson Contagion | When a host of agencies (including federal, state and dozens of public, private and not-for-profit agencies participated in a 2019 preparedness exercise to look at the “what-if’s” of a pandemic (Crimson Contagion), among the conclusions were:

“The Crimson Contagion 2019 Functional Exercise provided local, state, federal,
nongovernment organizations and private sector partners an opportunity to practice implementing response actions, as well as engage in candid discussions about response, resource, and capability challenges during an influenza pandemic across all levels of government.

“During the exercise, a significant topic of concern centered around the inadequacies of existing executive branch and statutory authorities to provide HHS with the requisite mechanisms to serve successfully as the lead federal agency in response to an influenza pandemic. Exercise participants highlighted the need to codify policies and procedures for HHS to lead, direct, and source funding in response to all kinds of public health emergencies.” This DRAFT after-action review is in this Politico article: “Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook:The 69-page document provided a step by step list of priorities – which were then ignored by the administration.”

Despite xenophobic and overt racism |many Asian-Americans experience, “Chinese Americans and local operations of Chinese companies are making hard efforts to donate medical supplies to hospitals, police stations and local residents to ease shortage and help fight COVID-19 in the United States. – Xinhuanet

Recovery | The third part of emergency preparedness circle is the recovery phase and every first responder has learned all about the cycle of an incident. The US has invested an incredible amount of money developing, implementing and offering and conducting training in the National Incident Management System. In Wuhan, China as that city has weathered, perhaps, the pandemic, it is now entering the recovery phase of an incident.

It will get out | Agencies and government can try to stay mum about things, but somehow, sometime the news will get into the community. We would find nothing about this at the news releases Webpage of the Lebanon Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s Website, but ABCTV-27 reported on the change in personnel at the top at the facility.

You gotta’ have friends | “U.S. accepts help from Russia in fight against coronavirus” – Beijing News

Ever-adaptive, ever changing | “Chinese researchers have raised the possibility that a new subtype pathogen of Covid-19  that has low toxicity but with prolonged ability to infect others might have occurred after observing a rare case in which the disease appeared to be “chronic”, pointing to the possibility of a mutation.” – South China Post

Today is Census Day | “Wednesday was supposed to be the great coming together for the 2020 Census. The bureau, city agencies and civic organizations had spent years planning for April 1, the official Census Day. The week leading up to it was to be filled with rallies, block parties, church events and door-knocking campaigns to urge people to respond and, in some cases, to remind them that the survey does not include the citizenship question that roiled the nation last year and threatened to harm the count. BUT NONE OF THIS WILL HAPPEN NOW. – The Washington Post

But today is April Fools’ Day | It’s apt to not have the same antics in the workplace, school or other public gathering spots this year even though there are lots of people fooling themselves out there.