Outline of the overall workshop:
COVID-19 has revealed that national governments and the international community are woefully unprepared to respond to pandemics–underscoring our shared vulnerability to future catastrophic biological threats that could meet or exceed the severe consequences of the current pandemic. This workshop: * equips public health personnel for early identification of malicious use of the tools of modern biology, an accident-caused biological event, or a naturally occurring pathogen emerging in a novel manner; * familiarizes public health staff with concepts of One Health, disease spillover, and indices of suspicion; * prepares public health entities with effective communications approaches to convey the scope and severity of an outbreak; and * facilitates multi- and inter-disciplinary responses applicable across the whole of society.

Specific aims/objectives and component parts:
Upon completion of this workshop, participants will be able to: * identify and analyze evidence of an emerging outbreak; * apply a participatory foresight, co-creative, future, and transformation-oriented methodology to structure a transformative model for a disciplined exploration of scenarios to confront complex challenges and facilitate improved outcomes; * evaluate current policy priorities and potential new policy directions; * see how the impact of possible policy decisions may combine with other developments; * inform, support, and link policymaking in and across a range of sectors; * identify societal demands and challenges; and * anticipate future developments, disruptive events, risks, and opportunities. The workshop begins with a scenario-based quiz, designed to illuminate disparate and often conflicting perspectives across civil society. Participants are familiarized with roles and responsibilities via Socratic roleplaying and provocative inquiry. Small groups are then assigned outbreak-related input and tasked to make recommendations to governmental leadership. Design of the scenarios is such that irreconcilable results emerge. Best practices are then reviewed, followed by a workshop-ending post quiz.

Key questions the workshop will address:
The workshop engenders “mitigation scenarios” based on the “Confront, Regulate, Overcome” metamodel combined with the “Security, Rescue, Care” response modalities, helpful and required for cooperation and coordination of law enforcement, fire, civil security resources, hospitals, and first line responder teams. The exercise reveals gaps in national and international biosecurity and pandemic preparedness architectures. It explores opportunities for better cooperation to improve prevention and response capabilities for high consequence biological events and to generate actionable public health recommendations for the international community.