Virus spread worldwide leads is an extinction level event.

While COVID-19 may have started in the United States as a small outbreak in Washington state on January 20, 2020, it expanded exponentially across the entire country in a matter of weeks. And at the same time, the virus spread worldwide.[4] The size and scope moved the incident typing off the scale[5]; there were no additional resources available anywhere, nor was there proper planning in place for this level of incident. There are hazards and threats for which emergency management cannot plan, organize, equip, train, and exercise because they are too complex. One way to quantify them is to describe them as Type 0 – Extinction Level Events.[6]

When the phrase ‘Extinction-Level Event’[7] is mentioned, thoughts turn towards world-changing events – such as asteroid strikes, nuclear war, and even climate change/global warming. None of those tragedies have their response and recovery missions coordinated through their national emergency management process. There is a cap to the maximum of maximums of the capabilities and capacities for national and jurisdictional emergency management agencies and departments – as well as the concepts of the Incident Command System within the field of emergency management itself. When a disaster expands[8] beyond the capability of the internal sub-jurisdictions within a nation, that jurisdiction usually requests assistance upward, all the way to the national level for support. When the nation itself needs support beyond its own capabilities, it can choose to reach out to partner nations, intergovernmental organizations, or non-governmental organizations for additional support (i.e., NATO, the United Nations, the Red Cross/Red Crescent National Societies across the globe, etc.). When all the nations are impacted at the same time by the same incident – and there is no one unimpacted left to help – that constitutes a worldwide catastrophe. Can any such incident be managed within a single nation’s borders? Maybe, but not by or through emergency management, since the decisions about all aspects of the disaster phase cycle missions of Preparedness/Prevention/Protection, Response, Recovery, and Mitigation are a matter of national security and economic development.[9]