Naval War College "Urban Outbreak 2019"

 

https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/civmilresponse-program-sims-uo-2019/

 

wargame scenerio document is a 14 page pdf by Mr Davies. Conducted over 2 days in Sept 2019, they gamed an infectious disease outbreak response in a notional but realistic city with a population of 21 million people. Appendix III provides a summary of the war game results and copied below. (

 

Summary published 4/01/2020

https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=civmilresponse-program-sims-uo-2019

 

Appendix III

Urban Challenges and Areas of Inquiry in Urban Outbreak 2019 Scenario

 

Round One: Outbreak

 

• Concept of employing informal public health providers in the response

• Concept of informal governance/security for access or mobility for vulnerable populations in key dense urban areas

• Establishing role of private security

• Determining differential access to resources based on social strata and location

• Assessment data from rural mountainous region

• Self-interested government officials and private sector actors

• Prostitution as a vector

• False information/suspicion concerning the outbreak and response

 

Round Two: Cascading Failures

 

• Loss of power, utilities, dockworkers, security, etc.

• Failure of existing medical system

• All other medical services severely affected

• Logistical capacity stretched for outbreak response purposes at theexpense of all else

• Hoarding, theft, and black market becomes extremely lucrative

• Increased international military role

• Challenges for responder security and ROE for military

• Ambiguous role of the national government

• Role of informal transit for response

• Flight of populations

• Quarantine/roadblocks

• Mortuary affairs

• PPE and medical demand

 

Round Three: Cleanup Wish List

 

• Pre-transition change in priorities

• Engineering, heavy lift or logistics from international military before transition begins/departure

• Reviving broken livelihoods

• Mortuary affairs

• Refuse in urban areas

• Security - rise of gangs and religious groups

• Badly damaged infrastructure

• Hobbled workforce

• Extreme needs associated with fractured health system (public health emergencies associated with those failures)