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Reopening America — They Have a Plan!

What, me worry?

There is a difference between politics and planning. Planning focuses on certain guiding principles, as outlined by the person directing the planning to be accomplished. In the military, it is called "the Commander's Intent." With that outlined for the planners, they work to come up with a plan that executes the Commander's Intent.

Here is the hitch. It is clear to me that end goal of the "commander" is to get re-elected. That is the intent! Everything else to be considered has to be sandwiched into the planning to support the ultimate goal — of getting re-elected. See this article, CDC, FEMA have created a plan to reopen America. Here’s what it says.

I am certain that there will be health components in the plan as outlined in the story linked above. However, I think every plan should have "Planning Assumptions." I'm betting that "the plan" will be saying that widespread COVID-19 testing is available — now, which we know was not true a month ago when it claimed to be so, and it is not true now. Then there is monitoring of the population and those who tested positive and contact tracing — really! Who is ready to do that? Certainly not public health agencies as they are funded and configured now. And they can't be ramped up in two weeks to make them ready either.

It is possible that a "workable" plan might be formulated and sent to the White House for "amendment" as necessary to make it politically palatable. That will likely make the plan less workable and much more political theater.

Who's in charge? As for reopening — it is the governors!

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