Journal of Critical Infrastructure Policy
Keywords : COVID-19 , Systems Engineering , Civil Engineering , Hazard Mitigation , Natural Hazards Policy
Introduction
We , along with many others throughout the world , surely felt a looming sense of dread early in the COVID-19 crisis when obviously essential supplies ( e . g ., masks ) and services ( e . g ., tests ) were described as being in perilously short supply in storehouses in the United States and elsewhere ( Holpuch 2020 ). We watched as the demand side of this crisis spun wildly out of control , marked by rampant and desperate purchasing of essential store-bought goods , precipitating immediate and profound shortages in households worldwide ( and , it would seem , disproportionately among less advantaged households ). And we took part in the massive evacuation from places of work and learning that had , in effect , been transformed into vectors for disease transmission . Private residences have now been re-purposed to take on multiple uses — school , daycare facility , place of work , even health care facility — thereby stretching our definition of critical in understanding the facilities needed to produce and deliver vital services in the time of pandemic .
Throughout this paper , we take an inclusive and flexible view of the term “ engineered structures and services ” ( ESS ). The reasons are twofold . First , evidence from the field in the COVID-19 era has revealed manifold , even heretical uses of the constructed aspects of our built environment ( hospitals , prisons , schools , and private dwellings among them ) and the services ( such as health care , education , and communication ) enabled by and through the built environment . Second , we wish to explore the implications of the boundaries we construct to differentiate these aspects as “ critical ” vs . “ non-critical ,” particularly as a function of the hazards we face and our capacity to deal with them .
The nature of coronavirus — highly contagious , invisibly spread — is of course a key driving force behind this paradigm shift : if we are not careful , our “ designed ” physical proximity — achieved through highly spatially ( and economically ) efficient workplaces and similar facilities — could literally kill us . Thus , while there may be a tendency to characterize COVID-19 as exclusively a public health issue , the built environment ( and the engineered systems that links its elements ) has both mitigated and exacerbated the pace of COVID-19 ’ s march around the globe , calling into question the role of engineering in the mitigation of pandemics . Included among these factors underlying our current capacity to respond to COVID-19 is the long-standing desire of many for-profit entities — supported by decades of research done in academia and elsewhere — to reduce operating costs by maximizing efficiency , thus further reducing slack in essential systems . And
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