We are all familiar now with the term “shelter-in-place” or SIP, and many of us are seeking to prepare not only our own families, but our communities. A new term that we will all soon be hearing quite a lot, I think, is that of “Community Shielding.”
Broadly, “community shielding” can refer to the preparation a community might make in advance to mitigate the effects of a disaster, and it can also be used in the sense of “self-quarantine,” whether voluntary or not. The term can be applied to many kinds of critical events, from natural disasters to bio-terrorism to other terror-related events. I am seeing the term used more and more lately, however, with reference to pandeimc influenza.
It might be a good exercise for us here to do a bit of research and become familiar with what “community shielding” actually means, and inform ourselves about its pluses and minuses.
If we are well informed, it will also be easier to use this term correctly when we are dealing with our own local community planners and leaders as I believe that shortly, “community shielding” will also become a familiar term for them as well. In the meantime, we can educate and help define what the term might come to mean in practicality. If we all investigate the topic and post what we find, it might prove to be a worthwhile exercise.
To start us off, here is an overview from the University of Virginia Health System website (which lists several PDF’s providing further information). http://tinyurl.com/yg3cfh
Community Shielding
Overview
When a terrorist attack or other disaster occurs, individual and community responses will be the most important predictors of survival. How can we ‘contain contagion’ after an attack with a dirty bomb or a biologic agent?
Although highways leading from an attacked metropolitan area are most certainly seductive, they may be roads to nowhere, leaving citizens trapped and vulnerable.
In most cases, remaining in our homes or other safe havens in the community will provide the greatest personal security. This is true in terms of physical and emotional safety, since people make their best decisions when they are in stable, familiar environments, and make their worst decisions when in unstable, unfamiliar environments.
Just as individual cells in the body are nourished within organs, so too must places of refuge be supported through Community Shielding, a wider form of shelter-in-place. When communities are deployed to provide necessary strategic support for shelter-in-place, there is less chance for first responders to be overwhelmed by unnecessary and dangerous evacuation attempts.
Community Shielding Resources Bioterrorism and Pandemic Influenza
Testimony of Frank J. Cilluffo Director, Homeland Security Policy Instistute PDF File http://tinyurl.com/yet8gs
Community Shielding Report: A Survey of Citizen Response to Potential Critical Incidents PDF File http://tinyurl.com/yltsc5
Testimony of Frank J. Cilluffo: Director, Homeland Security Policy Instistute PDF File http://tinyurl.com/yet8gs
(more PDF’s and other web links at the U. of VA Health Systems site)
The following is a selection from a longer piece by an Ambassador who applies principles used by the Foreign Service community to those which our own communities can similarly make use of for community shielding. While he speaks of community shielding as a readiness for and response to terrorist events, the concepts can easily be applied to pandemic flu. The entire document is worth a read (6 pages). http://tinyurl.com/yzzwha
Circling the Wagons: Community-Based Responses to Bioterrorism
by Ambassador W. Nathaniel Howell, Ph.D.
<snip>
The genius of the “Shielding” approach lies in its building upon the fundamental human predisposition to prefer a familiar comfort zone in times of anxiety and distress. The reluctance of people to abandon their “homes” is continually reaffirmed by their resistance to evacuating in natural disasters, such as floods, fires and hurricanes. No matter how devastating these threats can be, however, they are comparatively familiar and comprehensible in contrast to the unprecedented nature of terrorist attacks with biological weapons. As a consequence, and partially because these threats are posed by human agents and can be replicated, it is far more difficult to predict public responses.
Unless the “fight” response can be reinforced by coping actively with the situation in situ, a portion of the public may be inclined to “flight” with all of the uncertainties and complications that alternative implies. One of the most basic glues that bonds individuals to their area of residence is a sense of community with those around them. Such a feeling has the ability to affect everything from concern with the appearance of a neighborhood to the likelihood of effective cooperation in times of trial.
Where the public has lost, through easy mobility and other features of modern life, the association between neighborhood and community, the need to be with others toward whom we feel strong ties of mutual dependence and responsibility is no less intense in times of crisis. It is precisely at such moments of societal trauma that widely dispersed family and friends are least able to provide the kind of supportive environment required. Living among relative strangers not only inhibits self-help activities but may give rise to feelings of helplessness and despair. <snip>
How the Shielding concept is presented will be crucially important to public acceptance and implementation by neighborhoods throughout the nation. It is not, as it may appear to some, a negative or passive response to external threats. It must be made clear that it does not entail merely “hiding” at home. Rather, it will demand unprecedented levels of community activism and cooperation…..<snip>…. it is a strategy that draws upon the powerful strain of voluntarism in American society, avoiding the need for government intervention and coercion implied by involuntary evacuations and quarantines.
It’s all in the name. Here’s the rational proposed by one of the official in my state last year for using the term “community shielding”:
New York Times “Just in Case: Planning for an Avian Flu Outbreak,” Oct. 30, 2005
Dr. Matthew Cartter, the epidemiology program coordinator for the public health department [CT], said his agency has actually been preparing for a pandemic since the 1990′s. He said there are not enough hospital beds in the state should a pandemic occur. If officials instead call quarantines increasing social distance or community shielding, will residents be more willing to participate in them? Probably, he said.
This may have worked 50 years ago when we lived near family and had lifetime friends.I cannot see it working for very long with only an average of two weeks supply of food and very little water.
anonymous - at 17:50
That is why they want to make “community shielding” into an active verb. It is not intended to imply a passive state, but rather a phase of active participation and action.
The words “quarantine” or “isolation” do sound very staid and one pictures being very still and quiet within those zones.
“Community shielding,” by contrast, (if you think about the actual shield of a Roman legionnaire, for example), is an image that evokes the picture of someone intentionally and actively lifting a shield. That implies the manpower to lift the shield, and that energy has first been generated to create the shield.
But, as you point out, the notion of “community” will have to be hammered out too if one is going to create a “community shield” and that, in today’s world, will take some active hammering.
This it the right place to notify about some nifty techonlogy we are “all” in posesion with already, The wirless Local Area Network is the same box you use for geting broadband wireless in your house for instance. It is howerver a internet of its own if you want to, the socalled intarnet many workplacec have internal.
Placed in a high central point it may cover many residents, and they may be linked together, creating a wider LAN net. This will only be dependent of power, so even if the internet or phonelines conection are broken,you may use it (also with generators).
You can have chat, voice and even video chat, making people conected for suport, safty and socialising. (good for teens!) The bandwith is much better than most internet conections, and may also be used for exhange of entertainmenet like music, videos and games for those long evenings. And even more handy, as linked video surveilande of entire area (webcams can see in the dark if there is moonshine or some Infrared light source used.
“Any teen” can make this up and running in some days, and all the equipment needed is allready in place in many homes. With this in place even the physical contakt between the members of the comunity can be minimiced.
You will need wirelss cards/ boxes for every computer or “housenet”, and software like quicktime streaming or chat software like mesenger or Ichat, its all for free, If only one have internet conection, this may be shared among the internal net, (satelite phone, Long range radio net etc)
A intranet portal webpage is also good for infomation, like pre downloaded info from fluwiki etc.
The apples airport wlans box is one of those boxes that can link WLANS togehter from box to box.
Some areas in sentral towns are complety coverd with theese “internal networks” in many cities. And it was some of the things that was quikly fixed in New Orleans by voluintairs in the dome.
A very logic way to organise a comunity shelter reagarding the “they only have food for two weeks, will newer work” is that some of the seniors (that live in a house with no youngsters in) take the challenging task of getting the supplys in. The entire state will not have” empty shelves for a year.. There will be food, sometime somehwere, and joining togheter will make this posible. Water? you have the big berkey, neighbor has the pool…
The SIP plan has one weakness, its a solo game, thats why you need food for the entire pandemic pre in-house. With a Comshield(*) this overwhelming task is solved, someone can go out, risking infection and bring those essentials back..
No man is an island.. Now get that ass out of the sofa and start planning for it, carefully talk with neighbors, maybe even that “scary” dude down the road will be happy to exhange some “expertice” with some pandemic essential information or care when TSHTF.. People are mostly acting togheter for the comon good, you have just forgotten it..
I want the kind of shield they use in Star Trek
Urdar - hear, hear!
Tribes.
bump (“e-ge-sta-tem, po-tes-ta-tem, dis-sol-vit ut gla-ci-em”)
“it will demand unprecedented levels of community activism and cooperation…”
If the leaders won’t lead, the public will have to, and then the leaders will follow?
http://pandemicflu.gov/plan/states/statelocalchecklist.html
First Task listed: “ ‘’‘Establish a Pandemic Preparedness Coordinating Committee that represents
all relevant stakeholders in the jurisdiction
(including governmental, public health, healthcare, emergency response, agriculture, education, business, communication, community based, and faith-based sectors, as well as private citizens’‘’)
and that is accountable for articulating strategic priorities” (*Don’t forget mass fatality manangement ~cr) “and overseeing the development and execution of the jurisdiction’s operational pandemic plan.”
Pixie -
Great articles. I copied the best ones off.
Community Shielding will be perfect to discuss at the Nov 4th forum meeting in Seattle that I am attending. The simple idea that to share information and facts with the pubic BEFORE an event (like pandemic) will result in cooperation, and eventually save lives is the whole idea. FORCED quarantine is harder to maintain. But if the public understands what is at stake beforehand, and has already created community networking to foster voluntary shielding in anticipation of any problem, the community will withstand/survive any onslaught much better. Bottom line is the public must be informed and prepare well before any event.
These papers on Community Shielding also indicate that the local government needs also to be involved to help supply extra needed products like food, water, and medicines. How well that will work in a severe situation like a high CRF is quite questionable. Nevertheless, the basis for the Community Shielding is for the people to be knowledgeable and help themselves prepare BEFORE any disaster occurs!
Good concept I like it.good work
Pandemicgov also states that preparedness for local governments (cities and counties, etc.) is completely voluntary and not mandated in any form or fashion. There is no accountability below state level but they expect local governments to handle the situation if there is a pandemic. It’s like the government really doesn’t want to know. I’d like to see how many communities really have any sort of plan in place.
The ammount could perhaps be dropped into your eyes without pain, I’m afraid
Public needs to know, even if the local officials blinched from passing along the “you’re on your own” message.
Rural Dweller – at 08:19 There is no accountability below state level but they expect local governments to handle the situation if there is a pandemic.
It’s never been more true that we get the government we deserve, especially at the local level where most people don’t pay much attention.
You are right, crfullmoon, all they really had to do was pass on the “you’re on your own” message to their citizens and leave them to sort out what to do about it. It would have been the polite thing to do. ;-)
Rural Dweller at 0819 and crfullmoon – at 08:32
“Public needs to know, even if the local officials blinched from passing along the “you’re on your own” message. “
Trust me, they are. Despite being told [by me] multiple times {as I can be a real PIA] our local township feels safe thinking the county will take care of them-to the point where our mayor told me not to worry about this so much as they [the county] have warehouses full of cipro and doxycycline. I have told the county dept of health about this miscinception but AFAIK, they have not corrected it, so everyone is living in la-la land.
I wanted to puke. First-these are antibiotics used to treat anthrax and second-the county doesn’t have warehouses full of these drugs. Even when I told the mayor this, the hmm look never went away.
I’ve been pounding my head against a wall locally for a year+. I am prepped, and to tell you the truth, I’m close to giving up on this……
The National Pandemic Strategic Plan is also a well hidden CYA- we told you so from the feds.
Shall we all go to each other’s towns together, ;-) and read them the riot act? Bring a journalist, (if Diogenes of Sinope can find us one) or, some college bloggers, or a couple of sharp local librarians, and we’ll each have one last go at reality-basing local govt, before we bug out?
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