Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

This case study, written by Eduardo Robles Chavez and the Manchester Briefing team, presents examples of effective vulnerability mapping during COVID-19 in New Zealand and Wales, contrasting these with Mexico and Chile where mapping focused only on infection rates. Read this case study by following the source link below (p.13-16)

The city of Napier, New Zealand conducted a wellbeing survey to understand how the community was feeling about the pandemic, its impacts, their concerns and expectations for the future. This survey was then used to inform planning for recovery, renewal and other Council programmes. The Napier Recovery Plan identifies five key initiatives which can address issues for recovery and opportunities for renewal:

• “Support and Celebrate Napier” by launching a “We are Team Napier” campaign which focuses on promoting innovation and achievement in the local economy and within communities, e.g. “Environmental restoration of green spaces” comprising of a community-led partnership with the Council, land agencies and other relevant stakeholders
• Investment in local infrastructure and community facilities, e.g. “3 Waters projects supporting the renewal of Napier’s water supply and strategic water services”, to ensure everyone in the community has access to safe drinking water
• Establish a coordinated approach to housing and accommodation to ensure everyone has access to safe housing, e.g. “Continue partnerships established during Alert Level 4 to provide emergency accommodation” and establish “public-private partnerships to repurpose city centre visitor accommodation for transition and/or permanent residential accommodation”
• Introduce a targeted ‘Jump Start Innovation Fund’ to promote innovation in business and not-for-profit sector. Other initiatives include: Appointing business support liaisons to assist and advise on Napier Council regulations and initiating a “redeployment scheme” for SMEs
• A focus on advancing sustainability within the tourism sector, e.g. establishing a partnership with the Art Deco heritage trust to drive domestic tourism

Tauranga, in New Zealand, centred their 2018 city plans around four themes:

• "Improving the ability to move around the city
• Resilience and safety
• Increasing environmental standards
• Land supply (for housing and employment) and urban form"

These themes have been carried forward and underpin the council's 2021 recovery from COVID-19 plan. Tauranga's economic recovery projects and activities focus on:

• Fostering innovation, through training and courses in partnership with the University of Waikato which aims to harness and drive new opportunities for employment in Tauranga and the Western Bay
• Working with those driving the "Groundswell Festival of Innovation" to highlight local innovation and the "YiA Innovation Awards" to encourage young people towards innovative problem solving and critical thinking
• Seeking "shovel ready" infrastructure projects to generate jobs through projects which will benefit the Tauranga community socially, economically and environmentally
• Targeted investment in projects which will support small and medium-sized enterprises to recover, specifically those in the construction industry

New Zealand has developed a trade recovery strategy to protect jobs, increase employment and drive economic recovery. The strategy is shaped by three key priorities:

'Retooling support for exporters':

• Provide intensive support to exporters through tailored mechanisms to build capabilities and "connect with overseas markets and global partners"
• Strengthen online tools and services for exporters, e.g. "make trade barrier portals more user-friendly for exporters facing challenges offshore"
• Expand tools and services to SMEs through 'NZTE's Regional Business Partner network'

Refreshing key trade relationships:

• Provide current "free trade agreements with greater 'in-market' and 'to-market' support for exporters" - ensuring better support to an increased number of markets
• Intensify the existing trade diversification strategy and leverage New Zealand's reputation as a trusted trade partner
• Further the progress made on free trade agreements, through new negotiations e.g. with the UK
• Expand on the 'Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership'

Reinvigorating international trade architecture:

• Support the World Trade Organisation and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation to protect the multilateral rules-based system, develop consensus on policies to support recovery, and "push back against protectionism"
• Similarly, "pursue new 'plurilateral' negotiations, e.g. The Digital Economy Partnership Agreement and the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability"

The ALARP principle acknowledges that we might not be able to eliminate all risk, as risk is part of life, but we may be able to manage it. It is necessary to control risk, particularly when it comes to public health and safety. Throughout the pandemic we have continuously acknowledged the existence of COVID-19 risk and managed this risk to as low a level as practicable through various containment measures. When assessing COVID-19 risk ALARP, consider:

• What level of COVID-19 risk is as low as reasonably practicable and acceptable, e.g. for lockdown to end (this could be based on factors such as levels of hospital admissions due to COVID-19, or the number of people vaccinated)
• The likelihood of the hazard or the risk occurring and what degree of harm might result from the hazard or risk
• What actions are available to minimise the risk
• What cost is associated with available ways of minimising the risk - Is the cost proportionate to the risk
• Communicate with the public and educate them about risk being ALARP, to increase understanding that we will continue to live with COVID-19, and that recovery will consider risk in terms of ALARP
• Develop guidance for businesses (e.g. nightclubs) on operating according to the principles of risk ALARP in relation to COVID-19 containment

As schools begin to re-open, it is important to consider the wide range of needs and emotions of young people and staff whose lives and education have been disrupted by the pandemic. Pupils and staff may be anxious or hesitant about returning to school and may require additional support. Consider:

• Encourage schools to identify learning of what went well and what could be improved based on their experience of previous lockdowns - and use this learning to improve planning
• Identify the current capacity of services and forecast potential demand for social services to which schools may refer children and families. Create additional capacity where forecasted demand exceeds current capacity
• Work closely with schools to monitor school attendance and identify children who have not returned or are showing signs of distress:
  • Encourage school staff to reach out to families to understand the challenges that they are facing in returning to school
  • Enhance partnerships between schools and social services, to ensure any child who needs additional support is identified and appropriate support is offered
  • Ensure schools refer families who are identified as struggling or in need of additional support to specialist services
• Assess the impacts of further disruption and change for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their carers/specialist teachers/support staff in mainstream schools:
  • Staff illness or self-isolation may mean that schools do not have adequate levels of staff with vital specialist training - schools should inform local authorities to discuss alternative arrangements for vulnerable children in this event
  • Encourage schools to complete risk assessments and begin to plan for how one-to-one specialist teaching will take place safely and potential disruptions identified and actions taken to mitigate their occurrence
• Allocate funding to provide additional mental health support in schools for pupils and staff who may have experienced trauma, separations from or loss of loved ones or whose family may be struggling financially, e.g. due to job loss
• Encourage schools to prioritise children's wellbeing especially in the first few weeks, avoid rushing to reinstate routines or adding pressure on teachers and students to catch up
• Request a temporary suspension of school inspections to give staff time to implement and adjust to new procedures that may be required, such as health and safety protection measures

Concurrent incidents during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as locus swarms destroying farms in Africa, forest fires devastating the US, flooding in the UK, show us that climate change actions are crucial when considering renewal strategies. Communities that are more vulnerable to natural disasters are disproportionately challenged during a pandemic. Natural climate solutions protect and restore nature, which can help mitigation of (and adaption to) the impacts of climate change, e.g. coastal wetland can defend communities from storm surge and sea level rise, well-managed forests can protect water supplies, reduce wildfire risk and prevent landslides. Consider:

• Raise awareness locally of the value and potential benefits of nature-based solutions for communities in mitigating risks of future natural disasters
• Engage with local businesses as potential sponsors of nature-based solutions
• Establish a volunteering scheme with employees of local businesses to support nature-based initiatives
  • Partner with local voluntary groups and community based organisations to establish community-led conservation efforts
  • Establish a 'plant a tree initiative', to build and enhance local forestry
  • Encourage roof top gardens and balcony gardens - create online gardening tutorials for creating mini urban gardens
• Work with local land owners to identify appropriate actions that support nature-based approaches, e.g. planting marram grass to stabilise sand dunes or peatland restoration

Vaccine programmes will need to source sufficient vaccine, notify recipients of their eligibility, and arrange processes to administer the vaccine. Vaccine wastage, recipient confusion over invitations, and inefficient processes will risk undermining the programme's efficacy. To build early confidence in vaccine programmes:

• Agree the current aim for the vaccine programme e.g. to reduce immediate risk to life
• Identify the priority groups to vaccinate to achieve the current aim
• Identify individual citizens who belong to those priority groups
• Disseminate public information on current priority groups to manage expectations
• Explain to agencies that lobby for their staff to be given higher priority why they are currently prioritised as set out in the priority groups - and explain how this achieves the current aim
• Establish a national register of healthcare staff who are qualified to administer the vaccine -including volunteers and other staff who have been recently trained and approved
• Identify suitable facilities that can act as vaccine centres e.g. doctor surgeries, schools, public buildings, mass vaccine centres
• Identify the demand for vaccine at each vaccine centre (based on estimated throughput) and ensure that sufficient supply is available when it is needed
• Identify how the vaccine will be transported to centres and stored appropriately
• Maintain close communication with each vaccine centre to share information, for example, on:
  • Stock levels, delivery schedules, and projected demand
  • Which patients have received the vaccine
  • Which patients have been refused the vaccine and for what reason
• Track the performance of vaccine centres to analyse programme risks and capacities, for example, implement an inventory management system to reduce vaccine waste such as by tracking expiry dates (continued)
• Consider future aims for later in the vaccine programme and the timing of vaccinating different priority groups to achieve those aims e.g. to re-open non-essential business
• Seek process-related advice from countries that have already established vaccine centres e.g. Germany

Formal learning from COVID-19 is beginning to take place at national and international levels, to capture rapid dissemination of information and lessons. Similar approaches at local government levels are identifying emerging trends in response and identifying gaps and opportunities for the future e.g. The Ney report on Local COVID-19 outbreaks: Lessons learnt and good practice from Leicestershire’s experiences of responding to a local surge in COVID-19 cases. Consider:

• Learning can capture information in cities or regions
• Learning can be undertaken by individual local governments or a consortium through mechanisms such as peer review (see ISO 22392)
• Lessons may be disseminated within a single locale or more widely. The may be between cities or regions or internationally with organisations such as the Global Resilient Cities Network

We provide a few examples of formalised international learning and the key issues addressed to provide consideration for similar pieces of work at local level.

• The UN has developed The Compendium of Digital Government Initiatives in response to the COVID-19 to capture emerging trends in digital responses of UN Member States against the COVID-19 pandemic, and provide a preliminary analysis of their main features
• The Health System Response Monitor (HSRM) collects and organises up-to-date information on the responses of health systems and also captures wider public health initiatives
• New Zealand’s Independent Review of COVID 19 Clusters in Aged Residential Care Facilities which provides lessons on care facilities for the elderly and recommendations for improvements
• Korea’s COVID-19: Testing Time for Resilience which includes information on holding elections during COVID-19
• Consideration of how to learn lessons through debrief, assessing performance and peer review

COVID-19 has shed new light on the way in which countries respond to, and recover from emergencies. This includes COVID-19 specific advice and broader lessons about emergency preparedness and management. For example, previous guidance on volunteer management has traditionally assumed a point of convergence at a disaster site, while this still holds true for many emergencies e.g. floods, lessons from COVID-19 demonstrate that volunteer management may also be dispersed, large-scale and without face-to-face contact. Consider how lessons from COVID-19 may help to revise emergency plans:

• Conduct a 'stock take' of current emergency guidance, and consider what may be missing or no longer fit for purpose
• Implement debriefs, peer reviews and impact assessments, drawing on expertise from local government and emergency practitioners, to evaluate how well current guidance worked and where it needs revising
• Consider that emergency planning must remain relevant to specific types of emergencies, but that broader lessons from COVID-19 can help strengthen guidance e.g. issues of inclusion such as gender, ethnicity, sexuality; health and socio-economic disparities and vulnerabilities; volunteering capacity; supply chain stability; green agenda; and partnerships arrangements
• Draw on resources beyond government guidance from global networks e.g. Resilient Cities Network's revised toolkit which builds recovery from COVID-19 into a wider resilience agenda for a safe and equitable world, and resources from International Organization for Standardization (ISO) which is developing new recovery standards in light of COVID-19 lessons (ISO 22393)

Alongside the health and environmental risks, COVID-19 has exposed the vulnerability of current economic models. Circular economies are those that produce significantly reduced waste with the aim of producing zero through sharing, reusing and recycling products and byproducts - and the circular economy is becoming increasingly relevant during COVID-19. Consider:

• Developing more 'pay for service' models that do not require people to own goods in times of financial uncertainty e.g. using launderettes rather than having the burden of owning a washing machine provides alternatives to manage consumption, either by reducing expenditure, or opting for the basic alternative. These can be designed to support social distancing and COVID-19 measures
• Redefining and classifying what is considered essential if resources are limited or strained in order to prioritise needs. The circular economy may require redefining and rethinking the importance of certain roles, tasks, products and services e.g. the shift in perceptions of those in retail or waste management have been classified as essential workers
• Focus on local supply chains. Local supply chains can be more environmentally friendly and can also be more secure. De-globalization is a clear post COVID-19 trend. World trade is expected to contract between 13% and 32% in 2020, which indicates reliance on international supply chains may be seen as riskier than sourcing products and components locally
• Incentivize businesses, big and small, to become part of the circular economy e.g. encouraging businesses to take more responsibility for providing reusable facemasks to their staff, or supporting projects which aim to clean up and protect ecosystems from plastic waste such as disposable gloves and masks

Research has shown that disasters impact men and women differently. While COVID-19 has been shown to disproportionately affect men physically, women are more likely to be adversely impacted by disasters generally, and more likely to be failed by recovery efforts that do not meet their needs. Consider how to develop gender-inclusive disaster recovery that considers impacts of COVID-19:

• Tackle the drivers of gender inequalities in areas such as access to healthcare and economic recovery e.g. impacts of COVID-19 on low paid precarious work, health risks to care workers
• Include multi-stakeholder processes that ensure women's rights organisations are included in designing national response and recovery measures - this should also include groups representing vulnerable or marginalised women
• Assess bid for new funding using an additional criteria of impact on gender responsiveness
• Increase funding and capacity development for local and national women's groups; including for action against gender-based violence which saw a global increase during the pandemic
• Strengthen COVID-19/disaster responses to address women's leadership roles, not only their vulnerability to the virus
• Examine the availability of gender-responsive health services and vital sexual and reproductive health needs at local level
• Consider communications designed for women, to reach women. Women and girls may be less likely to receive and contribute to accurate COVID-19 information due to patriarchal norms/structures
• Include the voices and rights of trans women in response and recovery so they are equally involved in determining needs

GISs use computer-based tools to allow users to create interactive queries, edit and analyse spatial data and to visually share results by presenting them as maps or other infographics in real-time. During COVID-19 GISs have been used to reveal patterns and trends to help communicate information to the public, develop forecasting tools to identify trends in the virus’ transmission, and to support resource allocation during COVID response. Consider using GIS to:

• Develop publicly available maps. In Singapore, a publicly available real-time map updates on the current situation in public spaces. This can help residents to plan their activities safely e.g. show how busy public spaces are and the location of less busy spaces
• Provide near real-time updates of estimated wait times at Accident & Emergency. In Northern Ireland, a dashboard is updated hourly by NIDirect (an official government website) that provides information on open hospitals and wait times
• Inform people about changes in business operations and location of key services. In New Zealand, officials built a map that shows open businesses and whether or not the organization’s operations have been impacted e.g. reduced hours or closures
• Develop self-reporting health systems. In Switzerland, public health officials built a crowdsourcing application for people to anonymously self-report their health status. In addition, they can report their post code, age, size of household, living situation, and pre-existing health conditions. The results are shown on a map that health officials can use to assess gaps in confirmed cases and areas where people are self-reporting symptoms, and to identify areas for intervention

Psychological First Aid (PFA) provides basic emotional and practical support to help reduce distress and enable a person to adapt, cope and recover. Specific amendments may be needed to include COVID-19-related issues and recognised that some people may be at risk of more serious distress. For COVID-19 some of these risk factors include:

• Being at higher risk of contracting COVID-19
• Have serious losses, e.g. of loved ones, livelihood
• Already experiencing significant stress
• Have pre-existing mental illness
• Absence of a well-developed social network

Consider:

• Providing PFA training for organisations and the wider community e.g. schools, religious groups (as it is not just for professionals) to alleviate strains on health and social care services
• Providing additional training to volunteers on how to safely recognise when someone may need more specialised support
• Ensuring that those who provide PFA have sufficiently accurate and up-to-date information on COVID-19
• That those who provide PFA have cultural and social sensitivities for the locale
• Offering additional training to volunteers on how to recognise if their own mental health and well-being needs are being met

Extreme fatigue, nausea, chest tightness, severe headaches, "brain fog" and limb pains are among the recurring symptoms described by some sufferers of COVID-19 for weeks/months after their diagnosis. NHS England has developed an online portal for people in England to access tutorials, contact healthcare workers and track their progress called "Your COVID Recovery". Consider development of similar services that include:

• Access to a clinical team including nurses and physiotherapists who can respond online or over the phone to any enquiries from patients
• An online peer-support community for survivors - particularly helpful to those who may be recovering alone
• Exercise tutorials that people can do from home to help them regain muscle strength, and lung function in particular
• Mental health support, which may include a psychologist within the service or referral into other mental health services along with information on what to expect post-COVID
• Face-to-face provision for physical rehabilitation where possible, ensuring the safety of staff and patients
• Support from professionals such as dieticians, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists
• Cultural practices and relationships with rehabilitation needs

There is also an ongoing need for data collection about a nation's health to understand the long-term effects of this disease.

Consider a consistent approach to the response to, and management of, risks arising from COVID-19. This includes consideration of impacts on transition periods from emergency response into recovery, or recovery into renewal.

• Agree a process to approve any declaration of a state of local emergency or local transition period for emergencies that need to consider COVID-19 related matters. For example, consider who declares the emergency, the powers to enforce, what enforcement means, the role of political leaders in approval
• Agree plans for concurrent emergencies - to declare a state of local emergency (for a non-COVID-19 event, such as a flood) when a state of national emergency is in place for COVID-19. Consider impacts on these transitions
• Agree plans to declare a local state of emergency (for a non-COVID-19 event, such as a flood) that does not end any national transition period in force for COVID-19
• Agree plans for a local transition period for a non-COVID-19 related emergency when in a national transition period for COVID19

In Australia, local government are undertaking capability gap assessments to identify sectors that lack enough skilled personnel to undertake recovery projects. In New Zealand, the government is focusing on the role of the construction industry in positively impacting the economy and are implementing programmes to upskill trades people in preparation for building works. In addition, both countries are reinstating apprenticeships in vocational jobs such as construction, plumbing and electrical work to support young people, and short/long-term economic regeneration.

There have been a range of incident types against key workers, so:

• Ensure deliberate coughing and spitting is addressed in official policy such as the UK Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act
• Patrol areas in which key workers work to provide protection from assault and mugging as a result of workers' association with COVID-19 response, and assumptions that some workers have access to medicine and food
• Release official statements from law enforcers to the public to bring attacks on key workers to light. Use the opportunity to fact-check claims which may appear on social media such as the one claiming that an Italian doctor had been charged with killing over 3,000 COVID-19 patients

Actively investigate hoax messages purportedly from official Government sources that could put key workers at risk