One 2015 DHS report, based partly on data produced by NISAC, warned that America’s public and private health systems might “experience significant shortages in vaccines, antivirals, pharmaceuticals needed to treat secondary infections and complications, personal protective equipment (PPE), and medical equipment, including ventilators.”
Juliette Kayyem, a senior DHS official in the Obama administration, praised the quality of the NISAC reports she received when she was at the department, and criticized DHS for being “singularly focused on border enforcement” under Trump at the expense of properly planning for other threats like a pandemic.
“We should not be surprised that a department that has for the last three and a half years viewed itself solely as a border enforcement agency seems ill-equipped to address a much greater threat to the homeland,” she said.
In recent days, as the government raced to address the growing demands, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services asked their counterparts at DHS to dig up some of the old reports and analyses, according to two former DHS officials. The request came from within HHS’s Office of the Assistant…
