"Even though this issue largely has fallen off the public's radar, states recognize that successfully managing a pandemic outbreak requires a sustained effort to combat the threat in all sectors of the economy and in society as a whole," said Chris Logan, program director of the NGA Center's Homeland Security and Technology Division. "The conclusions of this report serve a vital national service: they demonstrate both the extent of our readiness as well as the gaps in our current preparedness."
The report draws some startling conclusions about the state of our preparedness, most notably that non-medical and non-health-related areas remain, in many cases, unprepared. If a pandemic were to strike, all sectors of government and society would likely be affected. As such, agencies and personnel across the spectrum of state government must be actively engaged. In addition, states should be pursuing improvement in five key areas of preparedness:
1. Workforce Policies: Because every sector of the economy and government will be impacted by a pandemic outbreak, states should develop and test policies that account for the ability -- or lack thereof -- of personnel to perform their duties from home or in settings away from the office for extended periods of time.
2. Schools: States should develop communications strategies to begin educating communities about the purpose and limitations of school closure, and ensure that federal guidance on school closure and reopening is widely disseminated and understood by all levels of government.
3. Situational Awareness: No system currently exists to provide states a clear picture of the presence or absence of disease at the local, state and national level, a prerequisite to effect strategic decision making. Systems should be developed that provide public officials with immediate information on disease activity, availability of critical supplies, deployed response assets and other essential data.
4. Public Involvement: To be effective, mitigation strategies in response to a pandemic outbreak will require changes in public behavior. The public must understand the logic behind recommended behavioral changes, as well as the potential benefits and costs of those changes. States should engage the public in deliberations about all anticipated aspects and difficult ethical dimensions of a pandemic.
5. Public-Private Sector Engagement: Policies designed to control the spread of disease at the community-level should be developed collaboratively between the public and private sectors to ensure coordination and avoid potential conflict.
The report's contents are drawn from nine regional pandemic preparedness workshops involving all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four of the five U.S. territories conducted by the NGA Center in 2007 and early 2008. The workshops were designed to examine state pandemic preparedness, in particular in non-health-related areas such as continuity of government, maintenance of essential services, and coordination with the private sector. The workshops also examined the strengths and weaknesses of coordination activities among levels of government, both vertically (state-federal and state-local) and horizontally (state-state) as well as with the private sector.
To help states better prepare for a pandemic, the NGA Center in 2006 released Preparing for a Pandemic Influenza: A Primer for Governors and Senior State Officials. The report examines key issues governors and their top officials may face should a pandemic occur. Among its recommendations, the report encourages states to perform training exercises to assess current capabilities and explore effective operations for incident response. According to the report, "Initiating even the most basic exercises now will save lives during a future incident."
