July 29: Scenario Update

This is an exercise. It is not real.

Good morning.  Today is the last day of the blogex. Yesterday’s mock news cast created the situation that pandemic has peaked here in Southeast Idaho. Tomorrow begins the Emergency Operations Center and Alternate Care Site portions of the exercise.

Now ask yourself: What am I doing? What am I eating? What am I drinking?  Where are my family and friends? What about my workplace?  Consider two, four, six weeks down the road with continued sickness, absenteeism at work, supply chain problems, and deaths.  The way to prepare for it is to visualize your daily life amongst all the problems. Some of the simplest things like having enough drinking water could become very difficult.

We’ll have a short wrap-up post in a day or two.

Here are today’s sickness numbers. Sickness is down a bit but deaths are up:

July 29	Population	Absenteeism Rate	Attack Rate	Number of people who have presented to the hospital with flu-like symptoms	Fatalities past 24 hours
Bannock	75,565	35.00%	33.00%	914	24
Bear Lake	6,411	35.00%	33.00%	78	2
Bingham	41,735	35.00%	33.00%	505	13
Butte	2,899	35.00%	33.00%	35	1
Caribou	7,304	35.00%	33.00%	88	2
Franklin	11,329	35.00%	33.00%	137	4
Ft Hall	3500	35.00%	33.00%	42	1
Oneida	4,125	35.00%	33.00%	50	1
Power	7,538	35.00%	33.00%	91	2

Viewers are encouraged to leave comments about how this situation impacts their life.

This is an exercise. It is not real.

July 28: First Wave of Pandemic Flu peaking in Southeast Idaho

THIS IS AN EXERCISE. IT IS NOT REAL. 

 

The pandemic flu has hit hard in Southeastern Idaho.  Attack rates and death rates are close to expected, with an attack rate of 30%, meaning 30% of people get sick, and a death rate of 2%, meaning 2% of people who get sick die.  Vaccinations are not available because of the long lead time required to identify the strain and create vaccines from eggs; research and development on faster production of vaccines was not completed in time, although it began in 2006.  This year’s annual flu vaccine may provide some help by minimizing the affects of the pandemic flu strain, but it will not provide immunity.  Local hospitals are providing drugs to people who are already sick, but these pills are not available to the public as a method to prevent the flu.

 

July 29	Population	Absenteeism Rate	Attack Rate	Number of people who have presented to the hospital with flu-like symptoms	Fatalities past 24 hours
Bannock	75,565	35.00%	35.00%	970	19
Bear Lake	6,411	35.00%	35.00%	82	2
Bingham	41,735	35.00%	35.00%	536	11
Butte	2,899	35.00%	35.00%	37	1
Caribou	7,304	35.00%	35.00%	94	2
Franklin	11,329	35.00%	35.00%	145	3
Ft Hall	3500	35.00%	35.00%	45	1
Oneida	4,125	35.00%	35.00%	53	1
Power	7,538	35.00%	35.00%	97	2

 

Supply shortages are already happening. Grocery store shelves are near bare because of runs on basic food items and inability to get resupplied because there are not enough trucks operating (lack of gas and repairs). Many Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) are out of cash and have not been resupplied for several days.

 

SDHD is recommending that citizens continue voluntary isolation. This means that you should stay away from large gatherings to keep from getting infected.  Mandatory quarantine and isolation is not expected but is legally possible.

 

SDHD is again telling the public that they should STAY HOME if sick with influenza.

 

Here is another mock news clip provided by the CDC.

 

 

 

The flu in this scenario is a Category 5 flu. The categories are created by CDC, who used the hurricane categories as a model. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a couple of newspaper clips from the 1918 pandemic flu.

 

 

 

What happens if the business you work for closes its doors and you are out of a job?  This situation will cause a problem for a majority of Americans. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Government personnel should consider:  How to provide services via the internet.

 

Business personnel should consider: How to provide services via the internet. Should you and can you shutdown operations?  Do you have the finances to see your way through 6-8 weeks of very slow business?  Have you cross-trained enough people and the right people to keep operating with low attendance rates?

 

Private Citizens should consider: Voluntary isolation measures: How will you stay away from large gatherings?  Do you have enough food in your house so you won’t have to go to a grocery store (which has empty shelves)?  What will you do if your employer closes its doors as a method to stay in business, meaning you are out of a job and paycheck for about six weeks?

 

 

 

Pandemic Flu could seriously jeopardize your family income. The slide above shows results from a poll in 2006 concerning household income if businesses close for pandemic flu.

 

 

All readers are encouraged to leave a comment about the how this exercise scenario

might impact your lives.

 

 

THIS IS AN EXERCISE. IT IS NOT REAL.

July 25: Additional Exercise Events

This is an exercise. It is not real.

Hello everyone. This is the end of week two of the pandemic flu blog exercise.  Thanks for sticking with us.  There will be no posts over the weekend, and the next post is on Monday and will be the third and final mock news clip that says the pandemic is peaking across the county.  New sickness numbers will be published, too. We’ll have posts on Monday and Tuesday, with Tuesday being the last day of the blog exercise. 

There has been more going on in this exercise than just the blog posts. We are engaging some of the public to call the district epidimiologists with specific situational updates and questions.  This helps get the communities involved and comfortable talking to the health district staff. Below are a few of the inputs like this:

–  Pocatello Police Department calls and asks for recommendations for personal protective equipment (PPE) for police officers.

–  Caribou County office calls the epi’s to discuss a staffing shortage at a local major employer. 

–  Idaho State University calls the epi’s to discuss the situation and what they are doing about it and what they can expect.  International students are specifically discussed.

–  Power County nurse called epi’s to inform us that that courts have closed because of staffing issues (50% sickness there).

–  Hospitals are using the daily sickness numbers to familiarize themselves with event tracking in newly fielded bed tracking software.

Still to come next week in the exercise:

–  Counties establish alternate care sites (Bannock County and Portneuf Medical Center did theirs on July 25).  Goals are to setup cots and other available equipment, establish an ICS organizational chart with expected/known actual people, conduct a walk-thru of the facility from the patients standpoint (where would I park? where would I register? where would I shower? where/what would I eat? where do I store personal belongings?, etc etc), and create a floor plan for the site.

–  County mass casualty disaster trailers will be requested and deployed to the first major highway. This portion of the exercise will review requesting procedures (including county dispatches) and dispatching procedures up to the point that the trailer would be on a main highway and we know the travel distance time under normal conditions. 

–  Southeastern District Health Department Emergency Operations Center will conduct EOC operations training on July 30, including the Planning P process.

–  District-wide communications checks between counties. Bannock County AARL is assisting. The Idaho Army National Guard Joint Incident Site Communications Capability (JISCC) will be setting up the SDHD EOC as if there were no landline communications available. The JISCC facilitates all-satellite communications.  Communications being checked include radio comms (700mhz interoperability), satellite phones, and WebEOC login.  We are also educating counties about Wireless Priority Service (WPS) and Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS).

On August 5, the health district staff will tape a wrap-up summary of the exercise on local access Channel 12 in Pocatello. This is another method of educating the public about pandemic flu.

The After Action Conference is scheduled for the end of August.

All readers are encouraged to leave a comment about how the situation will impact your life.

This is an exercise. It is not real.

Event Note: Logistics Health Pandemic Threat Conference

Received in an e-mail:

 Subject: Logistics Health Pandemic Threat Conference

Logistics Health Incorporated invites you to save the date for an important webcast:

“The Pandemic Threat: Preparing an Organizational Response”

On September 4, 2008 we will be hosting a webcast featuring the nation’s foremost pandemic experts, including Keynote Speaker Julie Louise

Gerberding, M.D., M.P.H., Director, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

 

Participation is free. For more information on the conference and webcast, including how to register, please visit: http://conference.logisticshealth.com/