Report indicating that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was designated as the Lead Federal Agency for the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020.
FEMA is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). (source)
"Why We Did This Audit
... The objective of this audit was to determine how effectively FEMA supported and coordinated Federal efforts to distribute PPE [personal protective equipment] and ventilators in response to the COVID-19 outbreak...
Background
... On January 31, 2020, just days after the first national confirmed case of COVID-19, the Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared a public health emergency due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, the Nation and the world faced dramatic shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and hospitals experienced unprecedented demand for ventilators — critical lifesaving equipment.
At the onset of the pandemic, HHS was designated the Lead Federal Agency (LFA) in accordance with the Biological Incident Annex to the Response and Recovery Federal Interagency Operational Plans, Final (January 2017) and the Pandemic Crisis Action Plan of January 2018 (PanCAP). As the LFA, according to the PanCAP, HHS was responsible for all Federal response actions to leverage available public health and medical resources to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the pandemic. However, on March 13, 2020, the President declared the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant a nationwide emergency declaration. This unprecedented declaration applied to all states, tribes, territories, and the District of Columbia pursuant to section 501 (b) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 United States Code (U.S.C.) §§ 5121-5207 (Stafford Act).
Under this Stafford Act declaration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was responsible for preparing for, protecting against, and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 19, 2020, FEMA was tasked with leading the Federal response in combating COVID-19 and playing the central role in coordinating Federal support for that response, thereby increasing FEMA’s role in the response efforts.
See Figure 1 for a timeline of events."
This report is a work of the United States government. Such works are not entitled to domestic copyright protection under U.S. law and are therefore in the public domain.