On Sept 27th on the County Pandemic flu Meeting thread TRay75 said s/he would summarize and post the informatino from a meeting s/he attended at Kennedy Hospital in NJ. Does anyone know if that was done? And if so where it’s at? I’ve been anxious to read it.
Eduk8or – at 10:22
Sorry on the delay. I have been under the weather since I attended the meeting and have not yet gotten the bullet pointed review written up. I’m feeling better and will get this done in MS Word over the weekend. DemfromCT and a few of the mods want to see it before I post to check for any items that may have been repeated or inaccurate in the notes. I’ll give you a one paragraph summary for now to relieve any anxiety.
The State of NJ is taking the likelihood of a pandemic influenza as a certainty in the next few years - not just from H5N1, but any of of number of virus now in circulation could mutate to be the one (most have been covered here before), but to what level they are not able to deternine (1918,1957, 1968, etc.). NJ has built off it’s 2001 response to the anthrax attacks at the Hamilton postal facility as a foundation of it’s response to pandemic flu. The NJ Department of Health representative, Dr. DiFerdinando, acknowledged that the government is aware that population effects (age groups or health problem groups most at risk) are not yet knowable; that there will no vaccine initially and for at least the first wave (and likely neither for the second); that there will be large social disruptions by school, business, daycare, and public gathering closings (i.e. imposed quarantine as needed); travel restrictions will happen; little available “mutual aid” for first responders; hospital diversion is unlikely as Philadelphia would be beyond its capacity and using all of its resources on its own population (ditto for northern Jersey from New York); hospital and medical facilities will be beyond their limits; ethical considerations are being brought up in public forum in the next months to decide what policies are to be followed if the situation requires rationing of health care resources; he did not like the term “You are On Your Own”, but effectively it would be up to local government to take care of its own people with little outside help; that Verizon and UPS had already worked with the state on their planning, but they wanted more businesses to get on board soon with continuity plans; and, most importantly, they have plans but do not have details set of IMPLEMENTATION - how to do this - and that is why these forums are being held. They also are including psychologists and mental health people on the forums and at the presentations to assess behavioral aspects and controls as things mature.
This meeting went 3 and 1/2 hours, and was attended by between 100 and 200 people (I couldn’t count as people were in and out during the course of the event). It was attended by health care, local government, business representatives, and the general public. I don’t want to draw any conclusions from this as of yet, and, having been sick since that time, I have been unable to really distill my notes, audio tapes, and 100 photographs to an easy format. I came away a lot like Goju from the NYC meeting in early September, but not yet wanting to make blanket judgements. I will spend some time as I stated above to make a more concise report.
DO NOT take this as a sign to be alarmed or fearful, only to see that TPTB are serious and are trying to take effective measures that will make a difference. And they are reading Flu Wiki as one of many sources of information (direct from Dr. DiFerdinando during the meeting).
TRay75: Thanks for letting me know… while I check FW regularly with all the flurry that happens on here in a weeks time, I was afraid I missed it in an inconspicuous thread!
Thanks for your hard work in thoughtfully compiling what you have for information, and I hope you are feeling better soon!
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