New Jersey did have a Statewide influenza pandemic plan and a Playbook to deal with other large-scale health hazards but those resources weren't of much value during the Coronavirus outbreak because according to the report most State leaders weren't aware of strategy existed and very few in the higher echelons of government had ever been trained on it that was perhaps one of the most glaring examples of how New Jersey failed to respond to the outbreak our Healthcare writer Lilo stainton joins me now for a deeper look Lilo uh of course I don't think anyone can deny that this is a very thorough report at nearly a thousand pages but what stuck out to you because we have had other reports about different areas of the pandemic response right I think um I mean one of the one of the things that stuck out was the totality of it um I mean it really was comprehensive and it went back you know as far as there was an entire section on planning which I was really struck by and it went all the way back to you know the 1918 1920 um pandemic uh that you know really has been seen in a lot of ways as as a model for you know responses and and has really informed a lot of the United States Public Health decisions ever since then so um you know it I was struck by by the you know the fact that the state did have a lot lot of plans um but also that none of them seem to be particularly um appropriate for this scenario and that none of those plans really came up yeah and and I think that was the question that a lot of us as we were reading this report were asking which was why I mean it it went into great detail about after scares from Ebola and in 2015 an influenza pandemic plan and yet State leaders weren't made evidently aware that these plans existed and the government didn't Implement them so why was there such a lack of preparedness when there were tools apparently at their disposal I mean that's a hard question answer it's a great question I think part of it has to do with the nature of Public Health I mean local public health officials constantly stress to me that the work that we do when we're doing it right we remain invisible right it's about prevention so if you don't see disease is if you don't see food illnesses then you know their work is going well um this was a situation where we were overwhelming our Public Health structure and one of another thing that stuck stuck out to me in the report was that um Paul zuc the attorney noted that you know he they went into the details of the different emergency laws and and plans that were you know that could have been applicable and a lot of them put the Department of Health in the driver's seat in this type of a situation but none of them equip the department of health or local Health departments with any additional resources on the contrary you know post 911 we saw a lot of sort of law enforcement counter counterterrorism biohazard type threat and a buildup you know in response to that and um you know law enforcement agencies did appeared to do a lot with that so the question you know why can't we build a complimentary Public Health System defense like that I don't know so so lack of investment in the public health infrastructure but did we get any insight on what metrics if any were being used by the administration when making the decisions that they did that was something that one of the recommendations certainly was we need clearer metrics for decisionmaking and and the report you know Mr zubac credits the government the the Murphy Administration for doing you know the robust respon that they did um but he points out in several places that you know if Governor Murphy Health commissioner Persichilli, Kelly and State Police Colonel Patrick Callahan hadn't gotten along and they got along famously it appears if that hadn't been the case none of this would have worked you know what if one of them had gotten sick what if one of them what if Murphy's cancer surgery had gone wrong and you know not to say that Sheila olival couldn't have led this but they were just the the sort of contingency plans weren't there and it really a lot of things that happened in this pandemic were because people stepped up and did extraordinary things but what if they hadn't relying on a lot of luck there uh Lilo stainton for us Lilo thanks so much thank you brI