Ignorance Is not Bliss: The Consequences of How Little We Know about COVID-19

Abstract

An expensive endeavor, hospital disaster preparedness focuses on a rapid response to an unexpected event, designed to protect, stabilize, and bring calm to shaken communities following a disaster’s aftermath. The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has presented a different type of disaster necessitating just as novel a response. In pandemic’s early days, it moved in slow-motion as the health care community initiated disaster protocol over a period of weeks, not hours. While mobilizing any hospital to battle a pandemic is not easy, legally at least, hospitals benefitted from unprecedented support by practically every federal and state agency, the assistance from which eliminated most barriers overnight so hospitals could establish and maintain momentum in the face of an epic disaster that, over several months, has moved forward, backward, and forward again