This article follows from a previously published article: Dwight Merriam, Pandemic Planning, 4 J. Comp. Urb. L. & Pol’y 70–81 (2020).
As of December 22, 2020, more than 210 countries have experienced outbreaks of COVID-19, with 77.9 million cases worldwide, 18.5 million of these in the United States. There have been 1.7 million deaths worldwide. The United States has the most of any country: 324,954.1
And the crisis is not over. Indeed, as of December 23, 2020, it is worsening, with 3,362 deaths that day in the United States.2 At that rate, it is essentially as if every person in Kansas City, Missouri; or Oklahoma City; or Tucson; or Long Beach died in the next four to five months. That daily death toll, 3,362, is more than the number who died in the 9/11 attacks: 2,977. It is more in one day than all those who gave their lives in the opening day of the bloody D-Day invasion.3 Many have become utterly and foolishly numb to the numbers.4
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation notes that health experts believe that 30 percent of those deaths could be avoided if everyone wore masks. But people won’t wear their masks, and we have no federal-state-local institutional infrastructure in place to require the simplest of protective measures that could save over 120,000 lives in just a few months. We have no uniform system to test, track, and isolate.
We didn’t plan well for the COVID-19 pandemic, and we are paying the price and will continue to do so, maybe for a generation or more. As planners, we pride ourselves, and appropriately so, with being prepared for natural disasters, like floods and fires, and disasters caused by our own mistakes and accidents, like oil spills and manufacturing explosions, as well as terrorism. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has done much good work in that regard,5 though it has had its critics.6 Planning for disaster mitigation and response has been something in which I have been involved as a writer and speaker since the first attack on the World Trade Center on April 26, 1993,7 eight years before the Twin Towers were brought down on September 11, 2001. My late coauthor, Rufus Calhoun Young, Jr., and I wrote a chapter in an American Bar Association book on the subject, and I have rewritten it twice since for the two later editions.8
We didn’t consider a pandemic. Neither did FEMA, for the most part. Going back into its considerable online resources, where I have spent much time in research and educating myself over many years, I can find little of planning for the pandemic. There is a twenty-five-page checklist for planning entitled “Key Elements of Departmental Pandemic Influenza Planning.”9 Get into the footnotes, and you will find a hopeful link right to the White House.10 Excellent. Click on that link and you will get this: “That page cannot be found, or is located on an archived web page.” So much for pandemic planning at the national level.
An undated discussion guide on the FEMA site, “PREPTalks: New Perspectives for Emergency Managers,”11 addresses the work of John Barry, who wrote the book The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, a 2004 study of the 1918 pandemic, which the National Academies of Science selected as the year’s outstanding book on science or medicine. Barry’s work is summarized in an article published by the Smithsonian, “How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America.”12 The PREPTalk is a mere nine pages.
One two-page pamphlet by FEMA gives us “Continuity Planning for Pandemic Influenza”13 and directs the reader to the World Health Organization,14 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,15 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),16 noting unhelpfully as to the CDC reference: “This site is archived for historical purposes and is no longer being maintained or updated.”
To some degree, it is not that no one in the government planned, but that they did not carry on work that already existed.17 In 2016, the Obama administration developed a sixty-nine-page National Security Council guidebook, Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents, to assist leaders “in coordinating a complex U.S. Government response to a high-consequence emerging disease threat anywhere in the world.” Trump was briefed on it in 2017. One former official described the playbook: “These are recommended discussions to be having on all levels, to ensure that there’s a structure to make decisions in real-time.” Another former official noted that the playbook was designed to prevent “piecemeal thinking when trying to fight the next public health battle.”
The Playbook is impressive and worth reading.18 It is marked “Not For Public Distribution.” The Executive Summary provides some insight into what the Playbook offered:
The goal of the Playbook For High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents (Playbook) is to assist U.S. Government experts and leaders in coordinating a complex U.S. Government response to a high-consequence emerging disease threat anywhere in the world with the potential to cause an epidemic, pandemic, or other significant public health event, by providing a decision-making tool that: identifies: (1) questions to ask; (2) agency counterparts to consult for answers to each; and (3) key decisions which may require deliberation through the Presidential Policy Directive (PPD)-1 process or its successor National Security Council process. The Playbook also includes sample documents that can be used for interagency meetings that need to be called at each stage. While each emerging infectious disease threat will present itself in a unique way, a consistent, capabilities-based approach to addressing these threats will allow for faster decisions with more targeted expert subject matter input from Federal departments and agencies.
This Playbook is also intended to complement the Biological Incident Annex (BIA) of the Federal Interagency Operational Plans as well as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Pandemic Influenza Crisis Action Plan (PANCAP).
This Playbook has two sections to assist with decision-making: (1) an international response rubric for emerging disease threats that start or are circulating in another country but not yet confirmed within United States territorial borders; and (2) a domestic response rubric drawn from the BIA and PANCAP that addresses emerging disease threats within our nation’s borders. Specific triggers for response actions and operational phases for both domestic and international emerging infectious disease threat incidents are outlined. Each section of this Playbook includes specific questions that should be asked and decisions that should be made at multiple levels within the PPD-1 process or its successor National Security Council process.
One can only speculate how different the impact of COVID-19 would have been, and still might be, had the Playbook been in hand at the outset of the pandemic.
Like other disaster planning processes, there are two levels of planning.
The first step is to mitigate the potential for harm. This is mitigation planning. We do this when we hurricane-proof homes through design and construction. We do this in requiring construction to be above some base-flood elevation. We do this in our climate change plans by taking actions to reduce and curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The “on the other hand” of mitigation planning is adaptation planning. Adaptation planning recognizes that we can never fully mitigate all risk and instead must accept that risk and deal with it as best we can. Examples of such planning are understanding that global climate change to some extent is presently inevitable. Adaption planning for climate change includes actions taken to reduce vulnerability to climate change. As described by the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), based in Nairobi, Kenya:
Developing countries are going to bear the brunt of climate change and suffer most from its negative impacts. Global conventions are not sufficiently effective to halt the increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG) concentrations, and we now accept that the primary drivers of climate change are not going to stop. Mitigation efforts will therefore only provide a partial softening of the effects of climate change.19
California’s “Adaptation Planning Guide” puts it this way:
Climate change is already affecting California and is projected to continue to do so well into the foreseeable future. Current and projected climate changes include increased temperatures, sea level rise (SLR), a reduced winter snowpack, altered precipitation patterns, and more frequent storm events. These changes have the potential for a wide variety of impacts such as altered agricultural productivity, wildfire risk, water supply, public health, public safety, ecosystem function, and economic continuity.20
No neat boundaries exist here between mitigation planning and adaptation planning. They often conflict and typically overlap. Part of the challenge is to make both approaches work in harmony.21
The second level of planning, tied back in some ways to mitigation and adaptation planning, is response and recovery planning. In the natural disaster context, having stockpiles of medical supplies is an example. Preparing the National Guard to respond post-disaster is another.
Pandemic mitigation is limited. It requires stopping the threat before it gets here. Helping other countries contain it might reduce the risk. Better screening, including questionnaires and taking temperatures, might help some, but our borders are so porous that it is probably fruitless. Early detection, tracking, strict travel restrictions, and aggressive quarantining to stop it could work—if done quickly and with no compromises. New Zealand’s elimination approach appears to have done that. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern imposed a strict lockdown starting on March 23, 2020, one month after the country had its first reported case, and at a time so early on that there were only 102 cases and no deaths.22 Out of its five million people there were just 1,500 reported cases and 20 deaths. On May 9, 2020, it was reported that New Zealand had its first day of no new cases.
The COVID-19 pandemic planning debacle elsewhere is in large measure one of inadequate, often nonexistent, preparation for both the response and the recovery. The news has been filled with stories about N-95 masks, ventilators, hospital beds, and even beauty salon owners scrambling for PPE, now a common term for Personal Protective Equipment. It is not as if no one knew of potential risk for hair salon employees from other hazards in the workplace. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has for years enforced a formaldehyde standard requiring eye protection, gloves, skin washing equipment, air testing, respirators, warning signs, and training.23 That’s good, but it wasn’t until April 11, 2020, that OSHA promulgated its “Interim Enforcement Response Plan for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).”24
What happened? As with 9/11,25 looking back, we had plenty of evidence of what was forthcoming. So too with the COVID-19 pandemic. A forum held at Georgetown University in January 2017, included Dr. Anthony Fauci, now so well-known that one can buy a Dr. Fauci bobblehead,26 who said this: “The history of the last 32 years that I have been the director of the NIAID will tell the next administration that there is no doubt they will be faced with the challenges their predecessors were faced with.” Dr. Fauci also made this key point:
What about the things we are not even thinking about? No matter what, history has told us definitively that [outbreaks] will happen because [facing] infectious diseases is a perpetual challenge. It is not going to go away. The thing we’re extraordinarily confident about is that we’re going to see this in the next few years. 27
The reality of what happened is that we knew about some of the unknowns, but simply didn’t fathom their significance. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld spoke about “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns” in remarks that some initially derided as gobbledygook, but, when considered more carefully, can explain what happens when we cannot even imagine the worst case or are prevented from doing so by a lack of bandwidth when there is so much demanding our attention more directly and more frequently, like tornados and floods:
The message is that there are no “knowns.” There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are thing [sic] that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that’s basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns.28
The pandemic planning problem then is we need to simultaneously undertake both mitigation and adaptation planning while we prepare for post-pandemic recovery, all in a world where our attention is limited, our resources inadequate, our assessment of the risk too low to justify providing the needed treatment capacity, and there are unknowns, including some that were unknown to be unknown. The most recent example of an “unknown unknown” is an emergent illness now being called “Pediatric Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome Potentially Associated with COVID-19” increasingly found in young children.29 No one imagined this, nor could they have. If it proves to be concomitant to COVID-19, it will likely change our planning. That too, the mutable character of planning, is a key point with all planning. It is iterative and interactive. One step builds on the prior, and all of the steps feed back and refine all of the others. It is neither linear nor static.
Everyone is eager for the coronavirus to peak and to pass and for us to restart the economy. Some countries think that they are there now. The Seychelles, for example, which has had no reported deaths, lifted its restrictions on May 4, 2020, reopened its schools on May 11, 2020, and ended travel restrictions with the reopening on the airport on June 1, 2020.30
Will the restarts everywhere be the result of thoughtful and comprehensive planning—or the product of haste and political expediency? How can we take advantage of the professional planning resources have? In approaching the monumental task of rebuilding and restarting the economy, we should consider how different the outcomes are when we either plan or do not plan ahead.
To underscore the importance of comprehensive planning for our economic security in the “new normal” of a post-coronavirus economy, a recent report by the Ifo Institute for Economic Research coauthored by twelve academics delivered this imperative: “Planning for this transition must begin immediately in politics, administration, companies and other organizations.”31 In other words, every nation needs not just a goal for restarting their economy, they need a plan.
We need economic recovery, but we must also do all we can to contain and reduce the spread of the coronavirus. While we have the vaccine, now being distributed, it will be well into 2021 before a substantial majority of people are inoculated, and even that forecast is problematic given the reluctance of some to be vaccinated.32 In short, we cannot expect the vaccine alone to protect us as we emerge from the pandemic. We will need to continue social distancing and accept the reality of continued lockdowns for certain groups of individuals, such as older people with health issues and those who test positive for the virus but whose illness has not run its course.
Professor Joseph T. Wu from the University of Hong Kong, one of the dozen academics who authored the Ifo report, put it this way: “Although control policies such as physical distancing and behavioral change are likely to be maintained for some time, proactively striking a balance between resuming economic activities and keeping the reproductive number below one (the number of people on average that one person with Covid-19 will infect) is likely to be the best strategy until effective vaccines become widely available.”33
In balancing risk and reward, any plan must begin with testing those who are well. Many are asymptomatic, and most will eventually show symptoms. They and we need to know who they are. Testing is now available with results in fifteen minutes or less, and those who test positive will need to quarantine. However, the resources for widespread testing are still unavailable.
Testing those who are well is critical to economic recovery because our new normal workforce will be led by people who have had the virus and are no longer contagious, assuming research concludes that they do gain some immunity (another “known unknown”) as well as those who test negative for the virus.
As much as we want to protect our children, it is important to reopen daycare and schools as soon as possible. Children do not typically have severe symptoms, parents are kept from work by having to stay home with their children, and distance learning has proved problematic, especially for the children who need the most help. Could there be a transitional program of allowing children and teachers who test negative back into the daycares and classrooms with parental approval?
The right-leaning American Enterprise Institute has issued a “Blueprint for Back to School” encouraging rolling two-to-four week closures after schools reopen in the fall, social distancing, temperature checks, protections for at risk teachers and administrators, and plans for the next two and three years as the reopening evolves.34
Besides workforce issues, other building blocks for economic recovery include targeting certain economic sectors. For example, economic planning efforts in Germany suggest telecommunications and automobile production should be given priority in boosting the economy.
Those who can work effectively and efficiently at home should continue to do so. Professional firms, such as law firms, and many offices can and should do that to the extent they can.
The construction and real estate development industries have been devastated. The work cannot be done at home. With proper testing and commitment to social distancing, they too should have some priority.
What businesses will be permitted to reopen on what basis? Can restaurants reopen if they use only every other table to maintain six feet of social distancing? It is important to consider the positive psychological effects of something close to normalcy and a good meal out with two or three friends could make the continuing restrictions tolerable.
Can movie theaters reopen if patrons, except those coming as couple or three or four as a group, have two seats open on each side and one front and back? A soda, a bucket of buttered popcorn, and an action flick with booming surround sound might be a quick cure for cabin fever.
Can barber shops and hair salons open if they maintain social distancing and if staff and customers wear masks? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent hair salon visit suggests the continuing concern over what we should permit.35
The travel industry will be the last to restart. Travel restrictions will need to be considered and the last places to reopen will be the resort hotels. It is unfortunate for that sector, but it is probably a reality of how we must continue to limit contagion where we can.
In the end, the plan must be one that proceeds in baby steps, with constant feedback on how it is working. The plans will vary across the landscape with some of the higher density places of public gatherings and contact restricted more than in outlying areas. It should accordingly be more than a state plan: every city, town, and county in the state must participate in developing it and must have some discretion in tailoring the plan to local needs and objectives.
It is a contradiction of terms to call for a hierarchical partnership, but that is what we already have, to some degree, in federalism and in other planning structures, including emergency management. What has happened with the COVID-19 pandemic, however, is that the need for immediate action has caused both the federal and state governments to declare emergencies and issue highly directive orders. It is likely that some of these actions will be found to exceed executive authority, even in the emergency, and some will be held unconstitutional as violating separation of powers, free speech, free exercise of religion, procedural due process, and the taking of private property without compensation.
Better planning could have avoided this situation, and we can now learn from what went wrong and reduce future error. Structurally, the federal government should lead on national and international issues, particularly in its unique realm of political diplomacy. The pandemic has brought home that we are one world, where a fatal disease can be spread half way around the world in less than a day. We need our national governments to be out ahead of rising risks and to take fast action.
Before going further to describe the hierarchical partnership, let us pause to consider what makes this planning process different than others involving disasters.
First, the COVID-19 impact has varied greatly across the country geographically. New Jersey has had the highest death rate at 180/100,000 persons as of September 7, 2020, with New York a close second at 170/100,000. Maine, Vermont, Wyoming, Hawai’i, and Alaska all have 10/100,000 or less.36 Among the states in absolute numbers, Alaska has the lowest number of deaths at 39, while New York has the most—32,612. This geographic variation might seem a little like that typical of flooding, tornados, and wildfires. But one important difference is that the shutdown in one region adversely affects others because of the increased economic dependencies that have evolved with modern commerce.
Second, the timing varies across the country and the pandemic is longer running than other disasters. Tennessee hit its peak hospital bed usage on April 4, 2020; nationally that occurred on April 19; and the last peak projected is North Dakota on May 15.37 That is forty-one days between peak hospital bed usage. It suggests reopening schedules could vary by up to forty-one days’ spread, all other things being equal, which they are not. The spread could be longer or shorter. Again, the interdependencies between regions means that one region may be hampered in its reopening to the extent that it is dependent on another region that cannot reopen.
Finally, the micro-geographic and micro-timing issues extend all the way down from a state’s largest city to its smallest hamlet. In September 2020, Connecticut still had one town out of its 169 contiguous cities and towns with no reported COVID-19 cases, even though state has suffered 53,782 cases and 4,474 deaths as of September 8, 2020.38 As of July 13, 2020, 58 counties in the United States still had not reported a single COVID-19 case.39
The COVID-19 pandemic differs from other disasters in that its widespread impact varies greatly, the timing of its impacts varies and is spread out over many weeks, and, even in relatively small geographic areas, the impacts can vary greatly within short distances.
The key to successful pandemic planning is a hybrid approach that respects the federal-state-local division of responsibilities and, at the same time, aggressively solicits input, direction, involvement, and intellectual contributions from each and every city and town.
We have 40,000 members in the American Planning Association. Most are professional planners; the rest are principally experienced elected and appointed officials. That is the same number of people as the entire U.S. Marine Reserve force.40 The substate regional planning agencies and governments, and the state governments, need to bring all those local professional and law planning capabilities to bear on the pandemic planning process. Those resources are virtually free, and that army of planners can help populate the marketplace of ideas in the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic recovery planning process. All of the plans—substate regional plans, state plans, multi-state regional plans, and federal plans—will be better by bringing in that local knowledge.
As businesses reopen, the most successful results will come from reopening those that meet the federal and state criteria. Those criteria applied across a landscape where the incidence and timing of COVID-19 varies greatly will result in recovery plans that vary as well. Those variations are best identified and implemented by locals. Testing and tracking are critical, yet so far we see little evidence that federal and state authorities are enlisting local planners in helping find people to do that work and in guiding the effort at the local level. That is especially unfortunate because it is the local planners who have the greatest knowledge as to resources and needs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a failure in planning, partly because government didn’t do its job and partly because there were so many unknowns. The response has been flawed because the federal and state executive branches have been task-oriented and quick to act after an overly slow start, all along largely ignoring local resources.
We can and do learn from our mistakes. Doing a better job means recognizing the need to embrace the hierarchical partnership and to capitalize of the substantial planning resources available, so far tragically largely ignored.
1. John Elflein, Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease pandemic—Statistics & Facts, Statista (Dec. 16 and 22, 2020). https://www.statista.com/statistics/1043366/novel-coronavirus-2019ncov-cases-worldwide-by-country/
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC COVID Data Tracker (Dec. 25, 2020). https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendsdeaths
3. Heather Hollingworth, One-Day US Deaths Top 3,000, More Than D-Day or 9/11, U.S. News & World Report (Dec. 10, 2020).
4. On December 23, 2020, TSA screened 1,191,123 people nationwide, the largest number since March 16, 2020. Christmas travel appears heavy despite COVID warnings, WABC New York (Dec. 24, 2020). https://abc7ny.com/holiday-travel-christmas-eve-new-covid-variant/9026047/
5. https://www.fema.gov/hazard-mitigation-planning.
6. Steve Cohen, FEMA’s Failure and the Catastrophe of Our Federal Government, Earth Institute, Columbia University (July 15, 2019).
7. World Trade Center Is Bombed, History.com (Feb. 9, 2010), https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/world-trade-center-bombed.
8. Rufus Calhoun Young, Jr. & Dwight H. Merriam, Homeland Security Begins at Home: Local Planning and Regulatory Review to Improve Security, in A Legal Guide to Homeland Security and Emergency Management for State and Local Governments, (Ernest B. Abbott & Otto J. Hetzel eds., 2018). Nowhere in the chapter that I authored, chapter 7, Hazard Mitigation Planning, is there mention of pandemics or contagion.
9. https://www.fema.gov/pdf/about/org/ncp/meta_checklist.pdf.
10. Article no longer exists.
11. Article no longer exists.
12. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222.
13. Article no longer exists.
15. http://www.hhs.gov; http://www.pandemicflu.gov.
16. http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu.
17. Dan Diamond & Nahal Toosi, Trump Team Failed to Follow NSC’s Pandemic Playbook, Politico (Mar. 25, 2020), https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285.
18. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6819268/Pandemic-Playbook.pdf.
19. L. Verchot et al., Climate Change: Linking Adaptation and Mitigation Through Agroforestry, Springer Science+Business Media B.V. (2007).
20. California Adaptation Planning Guide: Planning for Adaptive Communities, California Emergency Management Agency and California Natural Resources Agency (2012), https://resources.ca.gov/CNRALegacyFiles/docs/climate/01APG_Planning_for_Adaptive_Communities.pdf.
21. S. Moser, Adaptation, Mitigation, and Their Disharmonious Discontents: An Essay, 111 Climatic Change 165 (Mar. 2012), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227583959_Adaptation_mitigation_and_their_disharmonious_discontents_An_essay.
22. S. Collins, New Zealand Eliminates COVID-19, Lancet (May 9, 2020), https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31097-7/fulltext.
23. Hair Salons: Facts about Formaldehyde in Hair Products, OSHA (undated), https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/hairsalons/protecting_worker_health.html.
24. April 13, 2020, Memorandum for: regional administrators state plan designees, Through: Amanda Edens, Deputy Assistant Secretary, From: Patrick Kapust, Acting director Directorate of Enforcement Programs, Subject: Interim Enforcement Response Plan For Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), https://www.osha.gov/memos/2020-04-13/interim-enforcement-response-plan-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19.
25. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 9/11 Commission Report, https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf.
26. A. Elassar, A Bobblehead of Dr. Fauci Will Help Pay to Produce Masks for Health Workers, CNN (Apr. 5, 2020), https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/05/us/dr-fauci-national-bobblehead-hall-of-fame-trnd/index.html.
27. Fauci: ‘No Doubt’ Trump Will Face Surprise Infectious Disease Outbreak, https://www.healio.com/infectious-disease/emerging-diseases/news/online/%7B85a3f9c0-ed0a-4be8-9ca2-8854b2be7d13%7D/fauci-no-doubt-trump-will-face-surprise-infectious-disease-outbreak.
28. Secretary Rumsfeld Press Conference at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium (June 6, 2002). Official transcript from U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2002/s020606g.htm.
29. N. Fleisler, COVID-19 and a Serious Inflammatory Syndrome in Children: Unpacking Recent Warnings, Children’s Hospital (May 8, 2020).
30. Seychelles and COVID-19: Movement Restrictions to Be Lifted Next Week; Schools, Daycare to Reopen Later in May, Seychelles News Agency (Apr. 29, 2020).
31. E. Reynolds, Lockdowns Shouldn’t Be Fully Lifted Until Corona Virus Vaccine Found, New Study Warns, CNN (Apr. 9, 2020), https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/world/lockdown-lift-vaccine-coronavirus-lancet-intl.
32. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Frequently Asked Questions About COVID-19 Vaccination (Dec. 13, 2020), https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html.
33. E. Reynolds, Lockdowns Shouldn’t Be Fully Lifted Until Corona Virus Vaccine Found, New Study Warns, CNN (Apr. 9, 2020), https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/world/lockdown-lift-vaccine-coronavirus-lancet-intl.
34. E. Blad, COVID-19: Report Offers ‘Blueprint’ for Reopening Schools and Beyond, Educ. Week (May 4, 2020), https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2020/05/covid-19-reopen-schools-aei.html; A Blueprint for Back to School, Am. Enter. Inst. (May 4, 2020), https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/a-blueprint-for-back-to-school.
35. Jeanine Santucci, What We Know About Nancy Pelosi’s Visit to the San Francisco Hair Salon She Accused of a ‘Setup,’ USA Today (Sept. 3, 2020), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/03/what-we-know-nancy-pelosis-hair-salon-trip-amid-coronavirus/5708541002.
36. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/; https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk03gwTejGz0A9p-9IKFv8O8Jorn_6Q:1599670871744&q=coronavirus+by+state&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwig_cSwxtzrAhUBZd8KHfySAvMQ1QIoBXoECC0QBg&biw=1059&bih=530.
37. A. Ellison, Updated COVID-19 Peak Dates, State by State, Becker’s Hosp. Rev. (Apr. 29, 2020), https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/patient-flow/updated-covid-19-peak-dates-state-by-state.html.
38. https://connecticut.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/052f57eabb654d59a217885918065417.
39. Rachel Looker, Nearly 60 Counties Untouched by COVID-19 Cases Still Face Impacts of Global Pandemic, NACo CN Cnty. News (July 19, 2020), https://www.naco.org/articles/nearly-60-counties-untouched-covid-19-cases-still-face-impacts-global-pandemic.
40. Department of Defense (DoD) Releases Fiscal Year 2017 President’s Budget Proposal (Feb. 9, 2016), https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/652687/department-of-defense-dod-releases-fiscal-year-2017-presidents-budget-proposal.