From Brassville to… (working title)

Resources

Scams in the News – FTC Issue Warning About Coronavirus (COVID-19) Scams (GAO Notices) While the world is trying to take better care of themselves, cybercriminals are trying to seize the opportunity by creating COVID-19 scams. Here are a few tips that you should consider regarding COVID-19 scams:

·         If you receive any robocalls regarding at home techniques, do not press any buttons! Simply hang up the call.

·         Do not click on any links in emails that are advertising COVID-19 home test kits or vaccinations.

·         Be cautious with any emails that claim to be from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or any expert saying they have information about the virus.

If you suspect that you have received a suspicious email at GAO, report it immediately by using the Report Phishing button in Outlook.

 

Community Resilience Indicator Analysis (CRIA) and Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool (RAPT) (FEMA) The Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool is available to the public. FEMA released expanded capabilities to the Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool, including census tract data and additional infrastructure layers for all state, local, tribal and territorial jurisdictions across the nation. This update to the tool enables a more granular analysis of community resilience indicators and allows users to calculate the population of individuals with specific indicator characteristics in selected census tracts.  Supporting documents and information on scheduled webinars can be found on the FEMA website.

Hospital Experiences Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of a National Pulse Survey March 23-27, 2020  (DHS OIG) Hospitals reported that their most significant challenges centered on testing and caring for patients with COVID-19 and keeping staff safe. Hospitals said that severe shortages of testing supplies and extended waits for test results limited hospitals’ ability to monitor the health of patients and staff. They also reported that widespread shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) put staff and patients at risk. This report is based on brief telephone interviews (“pulse surveys”) conducted March 23-27, 2020, with hospital administrators from 323 hospitals across 46 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico that were part of our random sample. Our rate of contact was 85 percent.

Emergency and Disaster Management Case Study: Standing Panel on Intergovernmental Systems, March 2020; National Academy for Public Administration (NAPA).  The NAPA study articulates what has been learned from past experiences to inform the necessary transformation of roles and restructuring of responsibilities to support emergency management systems that can realize the objectives of effective and efficient prevention, preparedness, response and recovery to the broadest array of natural disasters possible. Also see FY19_ALL_STAFF-#1489088 in our EM CoP Resources folders.

IBM Watson Assistant for Citizens Answers COVID-19 Questions (Governing) To help agencies address situations, IBM has specifically designed a virtual assistant, Watson Assistant for Citizens, that is pre-loaded to understand and respond to common questions about COVID-19 directly leveraging CDC guidance. Additionally, agencies can customize unique intents leveraging other important information–via voice calls and digital text channels–to quickly help citizens get answers and stay informed.

FEMA Releases BRIC Policy for Comment (FEMA) The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is accepting comments on the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Policy. This policy describes a new program authorized by recent legislation that allows FEMA to set aside 6 percent of estimated disaster expenses for each major disaster to fund a mitigation grant program to assist States, territories, Tribes, and local governments. The new program would supersede the existing Pre-Disaster Mitigation grant program and would promote a national culture of preparedness through encouraging investments to protect communities and infrastructure and strengthening national mitigation capabilities to foster resilience.  A copy of FEMA’s policy is in the EM CoP Resources folder, DM file # FY19_ALL_STAFF-#1504931

 

Articles

All-Hazards:

·         Compliance Considerations for Companies and Individuals Donating Funds, Goods, or Services to Domestic Government Entities (Inside Political Law)

·         Pa. Only Shares COVID-19 Information with Some Counties (Governing)

·         Cities Are Flouting Flood Rules. The Cost: $1 Billion (NY Times)

·         He Spent $500,000 to Buy Coronavirus Tests. Health Officials Say They’re Unreliable (Rt. Fifty)

 

Resilience:

·         FEMA Publishes Stakeholder Feedback For New Pre-Disaster Hazard Mitigation Program (IAEM)

·         Firefighters Say Coronavirus Will Obstruct Emergency Service, Evacuations As Wildfire Season Closes In (CNBC)

·         How Can Big Cities Adapt To Risks Of Floods? (Euronews)

 

Public Health / Biosurveillance:

·         Black Americans Face Higher Rates of Coronavirus Infection (Rt. Fifty)

·         Competing Hospitals Cooperate to Meet the Crisis (Pew Stateline)

·         Exercise in 2018 Informing Washington’s Coronavirus Crisis-Care (EM/Gov Tech)

·         Animal Viruses Are Jumping to Humans. Forest Loss Makes It Easier (NY Times)

 

Innovations & Interconnections and Deep Thoughts:

·         How Do We Ration Health Care When We Really Have To Do It? (EDM Digest)

·         New Mathematical Models May Help Us Predict The Spread Of Future Epidemics (BBC Science Focus)

·         Small, Mid-Sized Cities Currently Cut Out of Direct Coronavirus Funding (Rt. Fifty)

 

 

The purpose of this blog is to provide myself a platform for retaining information, ideas, etc.*, mainly in the areas we shall refer to as:

Professor Vocino:  Adjunct Professor, University of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. (2015 to present). Expertise: disaster management, U.S. emergency preparedness and disaster resilience.;

Coach John: Assistant (volunteer) Coach, Eastern HS, Washington, D.C. / Principal: Red/White/Blue-HardBall (Baseball, Slo-pitch, Fastpitch Softball) program –

 

*Included but not limited to: observations, insights, factiods, epiphanies, bad ideas, unfinished thoughts, sniglets, incomplete sentences, fuzzy reminiscences of what i learned in college –  that i didn’t recall ever paying attention to before–  deconstructed concepts, personal revisionist histories, lists of what i want to be when i grow up, hopeless fears and fearless hopes. )