Government Executive
email 6 Lessons From 2020 Federal Leaders Should Apply in the Months to Come
As the embers of the dumpster fire that was 2020 burn away, important lessons provide light for the way forward in 2021.
Professor, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas
I haven’t talked with anyone pining for the good old days of 2020. But as we collectively stagger into 2021, it’s worth remembering six morals from the outgoing year that we’ll want to follow in the months to come.
1. The debate about telework is over. There was a time actually, a year ago when some managers looked skeptically at telework. The EPA, for example, found itself in the middle of a squabble when top officials tried to limit the telework time of their employees, and Social Security had actually decided to end its telework program.
Little could anyone have imagined when 2020 began how it would end: in the throes of a pandemic that has devastated millions of lives and upended the health care system, politics, government, the economy, schools, workplaces and simply how we navigate a suddenly and utterly altered world.
Government Executive
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We may be entering a Golden Age of data sharing.
Senior Fellow, IBM Center for the Business of Government
There were quiet celebrations a year ago as the long-awaited Federal Data Strategy and a 2020 action plan came to fruition. It involved hundreds of dedicated people across the government and the action plan covered 20 specific elements. But the federal data strategy is just a foundation for a potentially broader vision. A new report on the critical need for intergovernmental data sharing by Harvard’s Jane Wiseman says we need to extend it to become a national data strategy that embraces states and local governments as well.
As of this weekend, two COVID-19 vaccines have officially received emergency authorization from the United States Food and Drug Administration.
Shortly after the Moderna vaccine was approved on Friday, experts with the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center announced plans to track the vaccine’s rollout nationwide.
Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, associate professor and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and Beth Blauer, executive director of the Johns Hopkins Centers for Civic Impact, join
Closer Look host Rose Scott on Monday to discuss the new feature.
Plus, the pair share their outlook for the pandemic heading into the New Year.