COVID-19 A Systems Perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic is a massive disaster. Returning to normal life will not be a trivial exercise. A systems perspective will be used to understand the COVID-19 disaster and the Return to Life systems that will be developed.

In a systems engineering effort for a problem of this magnitude all technologies and products are examined that may be able to address the need and provide a viable solution. This requires massive resources and in the past the US Federal Government and a handful of systems engineering companies performed this type of systems engineering. This is called large complex systems engineering. Examples of large complex systems engineering from the previous century are the Telephone system, Radio and Television, US Space Program, Air Defense, Air Traffic Control, etc.

Systems engineering is the mechanism that allows specialists to quickly and effectively communicate their analysis to completely different areas and significantly shift the overall results in a positive direction. This book is in that spirit of an effective systems engineering activity. As time moves on this book will capture the history of the COVID-19 disaster and the struggle to stop it and all other future health disasters in its wake.