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COVID-19: Emergency Management Getting Involved With Vaccination Planning

It is about time that our profession step up and help.

Earlier in the coronavirus pandemic, emergency management agencies got swept up into the logistics of Personal Protective Equipment distribution. This all occurred because the FEMA became involved in helping the Department of Health and Human Services with the mission. 

Another opportunity to help has arrived. It is possible that you are "standing on the sidelines" watching the vaccination process play out in your community, hoping that no one asks for your help again. I believe situations like this that need help in planning and logistics are perfect opportunities for emergency management to step up and lend their expertise to the vaccination effort. 

I'm starting to see stories like this one from Texas: "Hospitals, emergency management working to distribute phase 1B vaccines."

You don't want to be sitting on the bench waiting for someone to call your number in the Super Bowl of disasters that this pandemic has become. Get up there and say, "Send me in, coach!" 

 

 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.