Pamela Berkowsky is former federal and state government official with expertise in disaster preparedness and response. She is president of Blue Sapphire Strategies, a public affairs business consultancy and a founding member of inWEM, the International Network of Women in Emergency Management. Pamela Berkowsky served in senior Pentagon positions during the Bush I and Clinton Administrations and now focuses on defense innovation and resiliency issues, including the intersection of the climate and coronavirus crises. There are many similarities between the two, including the urgency for rapid and sweeping action to limit exponential growth, the dangers they pose in overwhelming key response systems -- healthcare on one side and disaster response on the other, the need for whole-of-society solutions, and the requirement for short-term sacrifices to ensure long-term benefits, among others. The differences are striking as well – including the timeline (changes occurring in days to weeks vs years to decades), the causality (clear vs diffuse) and the impact of the threat (rapid onset and personal vs slow and seemingly impersonal). One climate expert has called the coronavirus pandemic “climate change on fast forward” and it is clear that our personal and collective responses to both must rise to meet the challenges they present.
A member of the Founders Advisory Board of the Journal of Health and Human Experience, Pamela Berkowsky is a former Pentagon official and the current president of Blue Sapphire Strategies, a public affairs and business advisory consulting firm. As chief of staff to the Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, she oversaw the development and implementation of the territory’s healthcare reform policy. Pamela Berkowsky maintains a keen interest in global public health, biodefense, and the development of vaccines and therapeutics for infectious diseases, including COVID-19 and ebola. Ebola is a highly infectious virus which causes a hemorrhagic illness; its average fatality rate is 50%. Ervebo, developed by Merck, is the first human vaccine for Ebola to receive approval in both the European Union and the United States. The EU approved the vaccine in November 2019 following a recommendation by the European Medicines Agency. In the United States, the vaccine received FDA approval just a month later in December 2019. The vaccine has proven effective in protecting adults over the age of 18 from the Ebola virus. The World Health Organization prequalified the vaccine and fast-tracked efforts to improve access in regions most at risk of an outbreak. A vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson, which requires two injections compared to Ervebo’s single dose, has passed clinical trials and has recently been administered in Africa. Whereas Ervebo is being used in a ring vaccination campaign geared toward frontline healthcare workers and close contacts of the infected, the J&J vaccine is targeted towards at-risk populations to prevent the spread of the virus outside of outbreak zones where the disease is not yet being actively transmitted.
Pamela Berkowsky is the president of Blue Sapphire Strategies and an expert on national security and international relations. Pamela Berkowsky has decades of senior government experience coordinating emergency management and public health and safety initiatives; her husband, Adam Shapiro, is a practicing physician. The global coronavirus pandemic has caused major geopolitical, economic and social dislocation while also exposing significant gaps in public health preparedness. While most of the world’s attention has understandably been focused on the pandemic’s negative impacts, it is important to note that there may be what some have called a small, albeit temporary silver lining when it comes to climate change. As a result of global travel restrictions and stay-at-home directives, for example, there has already been a visible reduction in carbon emissions across the globe. Researchers have found that traffic levels in New York and other cities have dropped precipitously when compared to the previous year, corresponding to a substantial drop in CO2 and methane levels. In China, analyses estimate a 25 percent drop in energy use and emissions in the last weeks of February alone. Furthermore, China, Italy, Spain and other nations have experienced plummeting levels of nitrogen dioxide, which experts say is linked to ground transport restrictions and a decrease in industrial activity. Even ornithologists are noting the positive effects on urban bird activity. Climate experts, however, caution against premature celebration and China – with its coal consumption already returning to near pre-pandemic levels – provides a clear example of how quickly emissions and pollution levels can rise again. A true silver lining would be the widespread recognition of applicable lessons learned and a renewed commitment to global cooperation, science, and green infrastructure.
|
AuthorA resident of the U.S. Virgin Islands since 2002, Pamela B. Berkowsky took her most recent governmental management role in 2007, becoming Deputy Chief of Staff to Gov. John de Jongh Jr. Thriving in this position, in which she managed daily Government House and Cabinet operations and policy development and implementation, she was promoted to Chief of Staff in 2011. Archives
September 2020
Categories
All
|