QUESTION: What did Hurricane Isaias tell us about disaster response during the #COVID19 #pandemic ? We asked @RealBobJ, Bob Jensen, who has deep Homeland and National Security experience to explain. Follow this thread for the answer.
ANSWER: "1. There will be stories about people in shelters who refuse to wear masks. Some instances may even lead to violent incidents. (I pray this won't happen, but it's already happening with people just going to stores and getting violent about masks).
2. Some disaster will cause large evacuations and the locations near them will be unprepared - which will eventually lead to further spread of COVID due to crowding and lack of screening in shelters.
3. Some regional or local hospital with COVID patients in ICU will be hit by a major storm and not just lose power, but also their generator backup and this will cause major issues.
4. In a country with much less capacity than the US - like Haiti, Mexico etc... a hurricane will devastate an area, destroy electric grids, overwhelm hospitals and further increase the COVID crisis in that country.
5. The less developed countries which have miraculously not been hard hit yet by COVID will eventually get hit and will create a "third wave" of the disease that will rebound to Europe, China and East Asia and the US.
6.The confluence of the US' second wave of COVID and the annual flu season will drive up hospitalizations and deaths in high risk populations to much higher levels than usual.
7. Wildfires in the west will create their own issues with evacuation challenges.
Many of these predicted incidents can be planned for and either prevented or mitigated. Emergency Managers, hospital and medical planners and international aid organizations are all looking at these challenges and trying to figure out how to prepare and respond."
You can read more about Bob Jensen's work here: strat3.com
If you have a question about national security, follow @NatSecAnswers. Send us your question and we'll get the answer. @threadreaderapp #A12
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