Responding to COVID-19 presents unprecedented challenges for public sector practitioners and addressing those challenges requires knowledge about the problems public sector workers face. This Viewpoint essay argues that timely, up-to-date surveys of public sector workers are an essential tool for identifying problems, resolving bottlenecks and enabling public sector workers to operate effectively during and in response to the challenges posed by the global pandemic. This article presents the COVID-19 Survey of Public Servants, which is currently rolled out in several countries by the Global Survey of Public Servants Consortium to assist governments in strategically compiling evidence to operate effectively during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.Taiwan is situated less than 200 km from the first Covid-19 outbreak state, China, and has millions of international visitors yearly. Taiwan's collective efforts to block and eliminate the invisible enemy (Covid-19) from the island, have resulted in relatively low infection and death numbers, and were hailed as a successful anomaly amid the global pandemic. In this review, I pinpoint some background on the systems and organizations that helped Taiwan streamline a task force (Command Center) in a timely manner to launch related initiatives, mobilize the public, and engage private resources to implement the strategies and policies which were further enhanced by collaborative behaviors and volunteers. Also, even subject to similar threatening conditions such as cruise ship stopover and numerous foreign immigrant workers, there were no outbreaks of community infection in Taiwan similar to Singapore, Japan, etc. Taiwan's successful measures offer good example for future comparative studies. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.This paper addresses how the Norwegian government has handled the corona pandemic. Compared to many other countries Norway performs well in handling the crises and this must be understood in the context of competent politicians, a high trust society with a reliable and professional bureaucracy, a strong state, a good economic situation, a big welfare state and low density of the population. The government managed to control the pandemic rather quickly by adopting a suppression strategy, followed by a control strategy, based on a collaborative and pragmatic decision-making style, successful communication with the public, a lot of resources and a high level of citizens' trust in government. The alleged success of the Norwegian case is about the relationship between crisis management capacity and legitimacy. Crisis management is most successful when it is able to combine democratic legitimacy with government capacity. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.The rate of expansion and breadth of COVID-19 caught the world by surprise. From the perspective of nonprofit and public entities responsible for service provision, this pandemic is also unprecedented. We offer a RISE framework for navigating the fiscal effects of COVID-19 and rely on recent surveys to assess local governments' and nonprofit organizations' response strategies. We find that many nonprofits were hit the fastest and hardest by the pandemic and that local governments are, essentially, trying to figure out their financial condition moving into the next budget cycle.The COVID-19 crisis has shown that European countries still remain poorly prepared for dealing and coping with health crises and for responding in a coordinated way to a severe influenza pandemic. Within the EU, the response to the COVID-19 virus has a striking diversity in its approach. By focusing on Belgium, France, Germany and Italy, four countries which represent different models of administrative systems in Europe, the analysis shows that major similarities and convergences have become apparent from a cross-countries perspective. Moreover, coping with the crises has been first and foremost an issue of the national states whereas the European voice has been weak. Hence, the countries' immediate responses has appeared to be Corona-nationalistic, which we label as Coronationalism. The paper shows to what extent the four countries adopted different crisis management strategies and which factors explain this variance, with a special focus on their institutional settings and administrative systems. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.Social distancing is an effective means for containing the spread of COVID-19, but only so if we all participate. Who are the individuals who are the least likely to adhere to social distancing recommendations, presently and in the long-term? Such knowledge is important for policymakers looking to sustain the public's buy-in to social distancing. Using survey data from sample U.S. residents (n = 1,449), we show that some demographic factors (gender, age, race, political party) help predict intent to adhere to social distancing. Yet demographic factors are relatively poor predictors compared to individual attitudes and media diets. We argue that public officials should make efforts to inform and persuade the public of the importance of social distancing, targeting mediums like TV and radio where audiences are less likely to currently engage in social distancing or are less likely to envision themselves sustaining strict social distancing for several weeks or months. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.In the United States and around the world, COVID-19 represents a mass fatality incident, as there are more bodies than can be handled using existing resources. Although the management and disposition of bodies is distressing and heartrending, it is a task that local, state, and federal governments must plan for and respond to collaboratively with the private sector and faith-based community. When mass fatalities are mismanaged, there are grave emotional and mental health consequences that can delay recovery and undermine community resilience. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/sar131675.html Using insights from one of the author's mass fatality management research during the 2010 Haiti earthquake, this article explores how mass fatalities are being managed in response to COVID-19. Based on the researcher's findings a decade ago, it is apparent that many lessons have not been learnt. This article concludes by providing governments with practical lessons on how to manage mass fatalities to facilitate and promote community resilience.