The COVID-19 pandemic has placed remarkable stress on all aspects of society, from health care and the economy to the psychological well-being of communities. While the crisis is still playing out in the United States and around the world, it is nevertheless appropriate to begin to assess its impact. This paper asks: What documentable public failures provide a deeper understanding of the U.S. government COVID-19 responses’ impact on supply chains? Case examples show that markets were adversely affected in ways that caused avoidable shortages of critical goods and supplies. Moreover, public procurement effectiveness was likely reduced by short-run efforts to obtain political advantage. The article begins with a brief review of disaster procurement, highlighting how public procurement professionals tried to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The next section delineates three politically led phenomena that adversely impacted procurement’s ability to acquire the needed goods and services, including a lack of cohesive strategy in acquiring essential personal protective equipment; preference for unproven drugs and magical thinking; and cozy relationships between the public and private sectors. The article concludes by discussing the centrality of public sector procurement professionals as a critical link for effective provision of government services, especially in times of crisis.

In Australia, the National Immunisation Program and its Standard Vaccination Schedule are administered by the Australian Government Department of Health. While the public vaccination program’s safety and worth are generally agreed upon by doctors and public health professionals, some continue to see vaccinations as a source of danger and harm. The burden of vaccination in order to receive public services aligns government and medical interests, but a less-than-trusting public may see conspiracy in such requirements, resulting in vaccine hesitancy. The media’s attention to the topic, and a tendency toward misinformation on the part of anti-government opinion leaders, necessitate additional exploration of the administrative burden of vaccinations in an increasingly complex policy environment, where public health benefits are weighed against individual freedom and belief. This paper examines vaccinations as a burden, with costs in compliance, learning, and psychological terms, using posts from the social networking site Twitter as a corpus for exploratory content analysis in the specific case of Australia and its requirements. It is worth considering whether the positive aspects messaged by public health professionals are successfully entering into the discourse on vaccinations.

Climate change has resulted in negative impacts upon rural communities, notably in the Global South; these impacts expose vulnerabilities that exist on individual and societal levels, necessitating consideration of adaptive capacity given the climate change threat, as well as the role of government in responding to hazards, and encouraging resilience and sustainability.

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