Published: July 17, 2008 11:52 am            

Murray undergoes pandemic flu exercise

By Mark Millican

markmillican@daltoncitizen.com



It is hoped the day will never come, but if a pandemic influenza comes to Murray County, health officials should be ready — as well as emergency and law enforcement agencies, business owners, church groups and utility companies, among others.

That “table top” scenario was played out Tuesday in Chatsworth at the Murray County Training Center as approximately 50 people from a broad spectrum of society played “what if” and “what do we do then” if a major flu outbreak hits towns and communities.

“The difference between terms is that an epidemic is a local or regional outbreak,” said Jennifer Moorer, public information officer with the sponsoring North Georgia Health District. “A pandemic is inter-continental or worldwide. The table top exercise leads to an actual exercise, but that could be several months down the road or even a year.

“The important thing is that people and agencies can now look at their plans and think about how to handle various situations where a pandemic could occur. The table top is practicing what they’d be doing in real time, exercising their plans.”

Chatsworth Mayor Tyson Haynes represented city government and came away with a manager’s outlook.

“We’re talking about 30 or 40 percent of the population being affected, with possibly a 50 percent fatality rate,” he said. “The concept was how would we respond and maintain essential services — medical, emergency, utilities, fire, church groups, etc. It’s preparing for a worst-case scenario you pray never happens.”

As a member of the faith community, the Rev. John Bagley, director of education and evangelism at Holly Creek Baptist Church, pointed to spiritual and physical needs during a potential pandemic.

“The scenario breaks down into what might happen if a communicable flu virus came in and how faith-based organizations could help,” he said. “In the early stages that could mean distributing food and water, and in later stages being supportive in the community if it moved into a quarantine situation and we had opportunity to minister spiritually to people through phone calls, the Internet and streaming messages. We could continue to minister to the community at large in that way.”

Jim Richardson of Corner Drugs represented the business community and also the pharmacies in the county.

“It taught us how to be better prepared for things like social distancing,” he said. “In other words, we couldn’t gather in a small place, and there’s the fact that businesses may be closing their doors. Drive-through (windows) and other ways to do business could be utilized in ways that people do not congregate together to spread the virus.”

He added that emergency crews could help get medicines out in the community, and unnecessary trips could be cut back, all in an effort to slow the pandemic.

Moorer mentioned that a worst-case scenario could be realized with international concerns about bird flu.

“In the last 100 years alone, there have been three pandemics,” she said, citing the avian-related Spanish flu in 1918, the Hong Kong flu in 1958 and the Chinese flu in 1968.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.