Berkeley, California (Thursday, October 25, 2007) – For two and a half hours Thursday morning, there was a flu pandemic in Berkeley.

            In a stuffy and windowless room in the Public Safety Building, employees from every City department, Berkeley Unified School District, the University of California Berkeley, and Alta Bates Hospital operated the Emergency Operation Center as if a pandemic flu had come to California the day before. Berkeley’s was the first functional exercise of pan flu preparedness in the state, and more than 80 people participated.

“This was a really challenging exercise, but I was satisfied with the high degree of professionalism and problem solving that we saw in there,” said City Manager Phil Kamlarz. “We also came away with some insight as to what we need to do, as a City, to prepare for this or any other kind of public health emergency.”

“So much rests on preparedness, both on our part and on the part of people in our community,” said Public Health Officer Dr. Linda Rudolph, M.D. “If people wash their hands, cover their coughs, stay home when sick, get their flu shots, and stock their homes with extra food, water and medicine, we’ll be able to greatly reduce the impact of a pandemic flu on our community.”

            A flu pandemic is an outbreak of disease that occurs when there is a new flu virus that can spread from person-to-person. Because a pandemic virus is new, no one has immunity to it, so it spreads quickly around the world and even healthy people are at risk. There have been three flu pandemics in the last century - in 1918-19, 1957-58, and 1968-69.

There is no flu pandemic in the world right now. However, the ease and frequency of international travel amplifies the threat of a flu pandemic and the State of California has been working to prepare all communities for an infectious disease emergency.

Emergency preparedness is a high priority throughout the Bay Area because of the high risk and likelihood of earthquakes. However, some of the issues that were raised in today’s exercise were dramatically different than in earthquake preparation.

For example, in a pandemic, schools and day cares may be closed. Because children do not have very advanced personal hygiene skills and because they are in much more intimate proximity with many other children, they have a high likelihood of spreading viruses. The closures of schools alone is likely to cause disruption, as many parents will need to find alternative childcare arrangements or stay home with their children. This affects not only the lives of individuals, but businesses’ and local governments’ ability to provide residents with necessary services such as groceries and garbage pick up.

Although not all those events are likely to happen in any given four hours in the real world, the exercise tested the City’s ability to respond to a variety of problems on several different fronts. Exercises like this serve to improve the City’s ability to decrease illness and death, minimize social and economic disruption in our community and maintain essential public services. As in other emergencies, our success will rely upon people’s ability to collaborate with family members and neighbors to ensure the health and safety of everyone in our community.    

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