What I can say is that, as you noted, the budget for operating the NESS was significantly less than it is this year, so annual-based funding for the NESS operations has ranged between $3 million to $5 million.
In the most recent year, that operating budget has grown significantly to almost double and is now sitting at approximately $6 million for operations and FTEs. In the past I can say that specific investments for the purchases of equipment have been time limited or through internal reallocation, and some of that time-limited funding was, for example, a four-year investment for medical countermeasures against smallpox and anthrax that was made in 2015-16.
With the onset of the pandemic, those time-limited investments have grown significantly and are close to $7.4 billion. The operating budget of the NESS has grown and is there.
In terms of the operations and how effective they are, I believe my colleague Cindy Evans would be able to speak to the effectiveness of that.