City officials prepare for flu pandemic with new warning system

Local schools, child care centers and Kansas University would close, possibly for up to 12 weeks.

Adults would be urged to work at home to limit contact with one another.

And public gatherings – yes, even KU basketball games – would be canceled.

That’s what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would recommend under a full-blown pandemic flu outbreak.

“The impacts are pretty far-reaching,” said Rick Gammill, director of special operations, safety and transportation for Lawrence public schools.

Last week, the CDC unveiled a new warning system in the event of pandemic flu. And Gammill and other officials in Lawrence charged with health and public safety now are studying the local effect of the new index, which uses hurricane-style rankings – from Category 1 to Category 5 – to determine the severity of a flu outbreak.

‘Not if, but when’

Gammill said state health authorities are saying a flu pandemic is inevitable.

“They weren’t sure if it was going to happen next year or five years from now,” he said.

So public service agencies, schools, hospitals and businesses have been creating their own plans for if an outbreak occurs.

“You have to think about the economic impact,” Gammill said.

For example, parents would have to stay home if their child’s day care or school were closed. Businesses would have to determine how to operate if much of their workforce had to stay home.

“They are saying it’s going to happen. It’s not if, but when,” said Kim Ens, disease control program coordinator at the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department.

“Our goal is to limit the spread of the disease and to hopefully sustain the infrastructure of our community and lessen the impact so it doesn’t disrupt everybody,” Ens said.

Ranking system

The new CDC categories are tools that will help communities get a better idea about what measures to take locally to keep the virus from spreading while a vaccine is being developed, Ens said.

A Category 1 is the lowest ranking under the new Pandemic Severity Index. It would be issued if an influenza illness rate reached 20 percent to 40 percent of the national population, with the potential of killing up to 90,000 people.

“If it’s a Category 1, which is basically a normal seasonal influenza season, we would just ask people if they’re sick to stay home,” Ens said.

As the categories move up in severity, more restrictive measures would go into place, she said.

Worst case

A Category 5 would be similar to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which forecasters say would kill about 1.8 million people.

“For a Category 5, we would be in collaboration with our partners to talk about closing schools and canceling large public gatherings and things like that,” Ens said.

Businesses would be asked to implement more liberal leave policies, allowing employees to work from home, she said.

“We know these things are going to be very challenging,” Ens said. “We do want businesses to start thinking about it and start planning for it.”

“What they’re saying is up to 30 to 40 percent of the population could be affected,” she said.

Among businesses making plans is Amarr Garage Doors, in the East Hills Business Park.

Kirsten Krug, people department director, said the company’s safety director has been working on a plan on how its 588 employees would be affected.

“We take it very seriously,” Krug said. “It truly could affect all types of our business because we’re not just in Lawrence. Although we manufacture in Lawrence, we have another 1,200 team members nationwide.”

Ens said people also need to prepare for a pandemic personally, so if they stayed home for a week, they would have medications, food and water.

Planning group

Ens said local agencies that provide public services have developed a task force that has met periodically for a few years to discuss how to handle a pandemic. The task force, made up of representatives of agencies that provide public services, would get together later this month to discuss the new index, Ens said.

Tom Damewood, director of environmental services at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, said the hospital has a plan that includes working closely with Douglas County Emergency Preparedness and other agencies to coordinate public services.

The hospital would not only have to care for patients but also would suffer a decrease in its own work force, Damewood said.

“It would be very, very difficult for us to deal with,” he said. “It’s kind of an unknown.”

KU planning

Kansas University, which has some 28,000 students and 9,400 employees, has had a team working since last summer on a response plan, said Todd Cohen, interim director of KU’s university relations.

They’ve been using the World Health Organization and CDC guidelines, and they’re working to finish up the details, he said.

If a flu epidemic breaks out in this area, it could be lengthy, affecting students, staff and visitors, he said.

“We have people who live on campus, and there’s child care on campus,” he said. “There’s all sorts of different things we have to consider. But we will do it in a coordinated fashion with everybody else in the community.”

Cohen said that during the last pandemic, in 1918, KU closed for a month. Even so, about 1,000 of the 3,000 students were infected and 24 of KU’s students and staff died.

“It could happen again,” Cohen said.

Tips for avoiding apread of flu

The following are “community mitigation strategies” set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and how they relate to the CDC’s new Pandemic Severity Index, which rates flu outbreaks from Categories 1 through 5.

  • Home. Voluntary isolation of ill at home (adults and children); combined with the use of antiviral treatment as available and indicated. Recommended for Categories 1-5.The following measures are to be considered for Categories 2 and 3 and are recommended for Categories 4 and 5: Voluntary quarantine of household members in homes with ill people.
  • School. These child social distancing measures are to be considered for up to four weeks for Categories 2 and 3 and are recommended for up to 12 weeks for Categories 4 and 5: Dismissing students from schools and school-based activities and closing child care programs; reducing out-of-school social contacts and community mixing.
  • Workplace/community. The following adult social distancing measures are to be considered for Categories 2 and 3 and are recommended for Categories 4 and 5: Decreasing the number of social contacts (including having more teleconferences or other alternatives to face-to-face meetings); increasing distances between people, such as in public transit and at the workplace; modifying, postponing or canceling selected public gatherings to promote social distance, such as postponing indoor stadium events and theater performances; modifying workplace schedules and practices, such as “telework” or staggered shifts.