This book, The COVID-19 Disaster. Volume 1: The Historic Lessons Learned and Benefits of Human Collaboration, is an intentionally apolitical treatment of the many experiences at the heart of the disaster. It collects hands-on experience from government preparedness and response work, including the impact on state IT systems, the heroic healthcare workers who directly faced the consequences of the disease each day, and the medical and insurance industries' impact and response, and then builds recommendations for the solution-approach book entitled The COVID-19 Disaster Volume II: Pandemic Prevention and Response Using Artificial Intelligence.