So I called the bio terrorism coordinator who’s name I was given and told him who I was and said we would like to get a representative in one of his next meetings. He seemed agreeable to this. I also asked for his email and inquired if he would be willing to answer specific questions we had and he said he would. He directed me to their brand new web site as of yesterday on their planing. http://tinyurl.com/z32fy
The actual plan can be found here http://tinyurl.com/e6gpa I have only read through half of it but they seem better off than I originally thought. Once we all read it lets come up with a definitive list of questions I should ask him that are not addressed in this plan. Depending on the response I’ll send it out later today or Monday.
Something interesting I noticed is that they are working with the local large food chain ACME to develop pre disaster packages of food for the public to buy, apparently originally designed for a blizzard or something else but easily used for a pandemic. Its a start…
(shaking head) I’m sorry, Max, but I can’t help thinking about Wylie E. Coyote pulling Rube Goldberg-type “ACME PANDEMIC PREPS” out of some box…
LOL I dident say it was fantastic, just a start. I actually haven’t seen what is included in these “kits.” Its supposed to be enough food for one person for 8 days. Yumm 24 cans of spam….
Plans can look good on paper, but, what’s been done?
When are they going to clearly educate the public?
Public isn’t so much at risk because torture isn’t legal, (biting my tongue now) but is at risk because they haven’t heard H5N1 could go pandemic at any time and preparation is not a quick checklist.
Too many things going undone on my mundane side of the keyboard; I’ll try and look at their plan, later, for issues to address… (peeks) “Coroner” -I’ll have to talk to some more people - I just see same old -oh, anyway…
All the best to you, Annoyed Max- Not mad yet.
Yeah I still have 10 pages to go and have more things highlighted than not. It does look nice on paper but its a lot of activate this plan and that plan. If those plans are finished I don’t know. There are some scary things in here as well, let me keep at this and Ill have a whole list.
Ill write this I guess how we want to ask the questions, these are in addition to the list of questions for police fire water gas dept etc listed elsewhere on fluwiki that I will cut and paste since none of these were addressed.
Ok the real meat of it starts around page 13 my first question comes up page 14. Its page first, the section number, then subsection letter.
14: 1e2 Assign staff to POD positions: As per my meeting yesterday it was stated that each pod would require 50–150 staff by CDC recomendation and you have a current staff of 120. You are planning for 10 PODs with an additional 77 potential sites listed. Where is the staff for these sites going to come from? How quickly could people be trained to staff these positions in a worst case scenario?
14: 2e Reference is made to an uninterrupted supply of meds and PPE. Where is this coming from, is it already stored somewhere. How long would this supply last given current levels in a worst case scenario?
15: 5a reference is made to the SNP for PPE. Do we have a specific allotment for this county or is it need based?
15: 5b References suppliers deploying shipments to PODS. Do these shipments physically exist or are these contracts for production and shipment? Are these suppliers local or national?
16: 6a What is the projected surge capacity of the county mortuary?
16: 6c What is the maximum number of cadavers that can be processed in a given time period?
17: 1f When will these DVD’s be ready and how do we go about getting a copy. For this purpose we would like to obtain a copy of each dvd for review.
17: 2b You reference stockpiling of antibiotics for treatment. Is your thinking that it will be used to treat bacterial pneumonia? Has this been done?
17: 2c What surrounding counties are you working with as we have members in several of them that are interested in this information as well.
18: 2d You reference using trucks if a pandemic hits. What measure have you taken to assure an uninterrupted supply of fuel and fuel delivery.
18: 3c You reference having an 8 week lesson plan ready. Why are you only telling the public to have supplies for a few days when you are planning on having the schools closed for 2 months or longer?
18: 4b Does this translate to having roadblocks/monitoring stations set up on all access points into the county.
19: 1e You reference detaining people for offences ranging to minor offenses to public insurrection. What will you do if disease breaks out in this group?
19: 1f Please elaborate on what conditions would be necessary to limit individuals from entering or leaving the area.
20: 1e You reference shutting down public transportation. What plans are in place to get workers to the hospitals, labs, and essential services who rely on using public transportation?
21: 2L If you lock down the hospitals will you force the non-infected to stay pre lockdown? Will you force the medical staff to continue working?
22: 5e How long will our current supply of meds last if this plan is implemented?
22: 6c Will the public have a say in which of these three option happens to the bodies of the deceased family members?
23: 3b Clarify are you giving out PPE to the public?
23: 3f Has this been done? If not what is the timeline?
24: 5h You reference pharmaceutical manufacturers providing skilled workers to give out vaccines and meds at mega sites. Having personally worked for big pharmaceutical I can tell you that there are very few if any workers qualified to give out vaccines or drugs to the public. Even if this was an option, all the essential workers will be required to produce the drugs and vaccines. There is no extra staff to spare. Please elaborate on these plans.
Comments….did I miss anything? Should I leave something out?
Annoyed… not even looking at the plan, I can assume (from many I have already seen and consulted on) that the actionable items they list are all well and good, but you may want to verify that they are planning on actually being able to implement all of those actionable items on only a 60–70% staffing themselves. Verify that they have already arranged/are arranging internal cross-training, telecommuting capabilities, etc. so that their own offices and communication services - that usually launch the other things - are sufficiently planned to be working with limited staff to initiate all the other “dominoes” properly. Does their plan pre-conclude an internal staff absence rate of 30–40% right from the start?
-that was a big “oops” I kept seeing in companys’ hurricane plans locally, even the best of them. When writing them up, they were initially assuming that 100% of management would be around (in office) to coordinate all the preparations and mitigation activities upon Hurricane Watches (36hrs out) and Warnings (24hrs out) being announced by the local EOC. -They were not accounting for the fact in planning that many Managers, as soon as a Watch was announced, were not going to be able to be at work from then on until at least the recovery stages. It was up to Managers to coordinate needed staff activities to protect the facilities, secure files and equipment, store data, coordinate alternative communications with IT and Phone services out of state, etc. Without a few key managers, huge “assigned responsibilities” that looked to be an evenly dispersed workload on paper, became unrealistic in practice with key people “missing in action” when the time came to actually launch the plans! (Managers that had to evacuate elderly family members from Nursing Care facilities for example, were immediate “gone”, as were those that had to commute over bridges that would soon be closed to 2-way traffic permanently within a few hours of a Watch issuance.)
Good point, I’ll include that.
bump
Acme Food Pack; The Emergency Food Pack contains enough food to feed one person for 8 days, or two people for 4 days. One gallon of water will also be needed per person per day…
They mention the CDC recommends food and water for two weeks…
Sometime soon the “bring our your dead” pages need to be updated.
A very few locales’ plans see the problems with letting “work” pile up; only letting people now qualified to certify death, or make death certificates and burial permits, do so even during influenza pandemic, and with assuming power supplies for cold storage, assuming enough staff, with assuming how the dead are id/handled doesn’t add to public outrage and PTSD, or legal problems afterwards, with assuming “enough land for mass graves” is all the prep municipal staff and their families have to take….ect, ect.
bump, no one has anything else to add… or is it that no one took the time to read it? I am content to send it out Monday as it plus referenced fluwikie questions that I have here somewhere. Once I hear back from him I will be contacting those of you that said you could help. See where we stand at that point.
Alright then I guess I’ll send it out tomorrow.
Annoyed Max-Not mad yet, I haven’t looked at it that good but my own concerns with plans I have read include preparing the public way before hand. most plans call for education when TSHTF, I don’t agree. If they take an agressive public education plan and start now maybe by the time TSHTF more people will be on board. They need to tell people the stores might and probably will be closed. Also, warn people about protection from civil unrest.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Max: I have not read the plan - only your comments. The big gap (which may be in the plan) is what happens to schools? Will there have to be a roaring epidemic before they consider closing? Is the school district super or school principal the one to decide or does an emergency group get to say. If so, what are the trigger points. I raise this because schools often act as a major vector for flu.
good point Informass, Our school will close when we have a confirmed case. Hello! Death sentence!
I was just reading Gojo’s page he created for his town. One thing that struck me I hadn’t thought about was when they vaccinate. Tons of people converging in one area - a great place to spread. Even though we all know planning for vaccinations although noble is not where to start. Some other good points are under the Strategic Stockpile thread.
Yeh- they say the big public meeting’s/gatherings were the major source of spread in 1918. Is this the exact same problem that plagued them 1918? How much vaccination happened in 1918?
Annoyed Max: I have read the plan and your list of questions is a good beginning. There are literally hundreds more that could be added. Let me touch on a few with broader implications. The decision/assumption to give antivirals, medications, and food supplies to first responders and hospital personnel and “their families” needs clarification. What is a family? Who is included? In the pandemic phase, it notes on Page 15(4)a a heightened plan for animal surveillance? Who is doing this? What animals? Who is responsible for guarding the “borders” as noted on page 25 (1) e? What borders, i.e. township, county, state? What about the need for courts? Will the local District Justices continue to operate? Will all cases go to Common Pleas as noted in quarantine hearings? Will looters, people seeking food, violating perimeters, etc., have hearings, trials, due process? The schools are barely mentioned except to have eight weeks of emergency lesson plans ready. Every teacher will love that one! Nothing is really spelled out about command and control concerning schools. Also since no Township Commissioner in the county has seen the plan and they are responsible for all of the local law enforcement, they will have a few questions to add! And on and on….
The plan needs more work, thought and monitoring. The lack of information on schools is glaring.
I will be happy to assist you and others in the area when I return from the Washington PAHO Conference this week with whatever we can do to help this plan become more meaningful. Our best bet might be at our township commissioner’s meetings.
Annoyed Max Only just aware of this forum. I like your item by item format. I’ve only looked over page 14–18 so far and will send comments in small batches due to lateness of response.
Using your same format:
16: 5f Issuing bulletins to discourage hoarding of antivirals. Require physicians, etc to “document/report” to control authority the dispensing of antivirals just like pharmacies – to the same computer base as a pharmacy uses for regular Rx. If antivirals are being hoarded, doctors and pharmacies may not be a safe place of employment or SIP.
15:5j. Get state (federal govt) to issue emergency legislation to require health insurance providers to allow 3 month purchases of Rx (especially for diabetics, heart patients, blood pressure meds, i.e. those patients on a continuing med routine).
17:2b Lift restriction of pneumovax nowto reduce incident/infection rate. Doctors are so hesitant to provide vaccinations if patient isn’t in high risk group (most medical staff think their field is the only high risk occupation).
18: 3c AMEN Federal govt now says to prep for 2–8 weeks. Maybe local govt should provide prep assistance to families on food program in schools. Purchase bulk rice and beans at a minimum and deliver. These families might not have vehicles to move bulk supplies (if they use public transportation).
18: all Why wait until a “case” is identified in a school before closing the school. If the pandemic has started its march across the country and a “case” happens within 200 miles of the county border, close all county schools!!! Why go through a terrible “evacuation” if potential contact can be negated ahead of the pandemic.
18: 4 e & f discourage all but essential employees from coming to work daily. To minimize traffic/congestion on roads due to police surveillance and petrol savings during a delivery crunch, make arrangements to have essential personnel work 2–3 days at a time. Better yet, provide onsite accommodations (trailers) and arrange for designated employees to bring families to “campout” at designated utilities to reduce employees’ mental anxiety over families welfare.
I will begin to compile all this and I will email him the questions today with what I guess will be our first round of many critiques. Brunnetti and the others that said they would help; I think we are going to have to have a meeting with the locals. Maybe I can stress the need for anonymity due to several of us working for organizations where we would not be allowed to speak our mind freely otherwise. Who we are should not matter as much as the points we are trying to make.
How many daily calories in the ACME supplies?
Science Teacher at 13:15 - I heard the head of the Montco Dept. of Health say that there were 1750 calories in a day’s supply.
Sending out the email. I asked him to either respond to me directly or to post his response on the forum. After I wrote it all up it came to 5 typed pages of questions so this could take a while.