The COVID-19 response: considerations for future humanitarian supply chain and logistics management research

What is it about?

In December of 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) learned about several cases of a severe type of pneumonia in Wuhan, China. The type of pneumonia, a strain of COVID 19 that the WHO named COVID-19, has left no country untouched. When COVID 19 first emerged in late 2019, areas that experienced its first wave the hardest, including China, Italy, and the USA, were left flatfooted. They were hard-pressed to understand this novel illness, its magnitude, and the requirements necessary to mount an effective response. This paper argues that we need a more thorough understanding of the humanitarian supply chain and disaster logistics operations in the context of pandemics, and epidemics. Based on the thematic lessons from the COVID 19 response, the paper proposes some of the issues that need to guide our future research

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