The flu this year has shown a very rapid increase in the number of people hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed cases. More alarming, is the fact influenza activity has not peaked, and all states, except for Hawaii and Oregon continue to report widespread activity.
On January 13, 2018 at 8:07 a.m. local time, the state of Hawaii was sent into a panic, as residents received an alert of an imminent ballistic missile threat. The alert was sent out through the Emergency Alert System and was broadcast via television, radio, and cellphones throughout the state.
In recent years, the United States has been experiencing a major public health crisis in the form of an epidemic of opioid abuse. In 2015 alone, there were 33,091 drug overdose deaths involving opioids in the United States. These numbers represent a rate of overdose deaths more than 2.5 times higher than the rate in 1999.
This past year, more people died from opioid overdoses than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War. States and local agencies have reacted in various ways in their development of emergency response tactics to combat the epidemic.
A fundamental responsibility of State and Local governments is to protect critical infrastructure that preserve public safety, normalcy, and quality of life.
