Copyright 2006 Paddock Publications, Inc.
By DAVE ORRICK
Chicago Daily Herald (Illinois)
Only a test: The state Wednesday continued its first-ever drill for an outbreak of deadly pandemic flu. In reality, no such disease currently exists.
Editor’s note: This is part of an occasional series exploring how the suburbs and state are preparing for the possibility of a deadly flu pandemic.
It’s 9:35 a.m., and Dr. Guy Dugan has found himself in a role reversal. He’s ashen, coughing, bleeding through his nose and feels horrendous.
He walks into the emergency room at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village and tells admitting nurse Jan Koval he needs help. He says he recently returned from Shanghai.
When the news reaches a conference room-turned “command center” in another wing of the hospital, isolation wards are set up, patients are moved and a decontamination tent that looks like something from the “X-Files” is erected.
A remote staging area is set up for pretty much anyone who wants to visit the hospital. Within an hour of Dugan’s arrival, groups of hospital staff are at risk of becoming sick themselves - potentially thinning their needed ranks - and the entire campus is declared a hot zone for a killer: pandemic flu.
“Don’t let anyone in or out,” says Dr. Lynwood Jones, the hospital’s head of infectious diseases.
This was only a drill Wednesday at Alexian Brothers, part of a statewide exercise stretching from Elgin to Springfield to test Illinois’ outbreak and terrorism plans. In reality, Dugan is fine and was merely role-playing.
But there was little fiction Wednesday in Washington as the White House released its national plan on how to deal with the potential of pandemic flu.
Echoing a chorus of national and international experts, the plan stresses that no pandemic flu exists today. But an internationally spreading flu affecting birds - the H5N1 virus that has killed 113 people worldwide - could change into a bug that spreads from person to person like wildfire.
A virus just like that is the simulated killer in Illinois’ drill, parts of which will continue until Friday.
State and federal planners threw a curveball into the mix Wednesday, when terrorists, seeing the state was stricken by the outbreak, blew up buildings in Oak Lawn, Summit and Glenview.
In the influenza scenario, it took a mere 10 days for the first confirmed outbreak in Shanghai to reach the Chicago suburbs, via a local traveler flying from China to O’Hare.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had approved shipping enough Tamiflu - an antiviral drug that may or may not help against a pandemic - for 950,000 people. But as 11 a.m. approached Wednesday and Alexian Brothers battened down its hatches, the core group of hospital leaders in the command center realized the hospital’s inventory was enough for only 100 people - and neighboring hospitals had none to spare.
Later in the day, Gov. Rod Blagojevich issued a statewide order: The only people who get the drug are people who already have been in contact with sick people. No exceptions for doctors, cops, ambulance drivers or anyone else, said Dr. Eric Whitaker, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health. Whitaker and other key leaders were overseeing the response from the state’s new emergency bunker in Springfield.
The combination of terrorism and pandemic with a drug shortage had a chilling effect, said Mike Chamness, chairman of the state’s terrorism task force. Based on what amounted to a live survey of actual personnel, of one group of 1,000 emergency responders asked to report for duty, only 300 said yes, he said.
An isolation room in Alexian Brothers Medical Center’s emergency room in Elk Grove Village became the front line against a hypothetical pandemic flu during a drill Wednesday. Nurse Karen Salsini, left, and Dr. Charlotte Albinson tend to Dr. Guy Dugan, who played the role of a stricken patient, inside a “negative- pressure” room designed to contain deadly germs. Mark Welsh/Daily Herald The need for a ready supply of special masks - and the need to know how to put them on - is one of many reasons why Wednesday’s simulated pandemic flu outbreak was acted out by real workers, such as Dr. Charlotte Albinson, who works in the emergency room of Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village. Mark Welsh/Daily Herald Pagers of hospital workers throughout the suburbs sounded regularly Wednesday to remind them that information circulating about a pandemic flu was only a drill. No such flu currently exists, although experts warn it could. Mark Welsh/Daily Herald
U.S. flu plan: Be ready to deal with absences Employers, schools and governments should all be ready for widespread absences during an influenza pandemic, the White House advised in its new pandemic plan released Wednesday. Here are some of its ideas: - Set up policies for non-penalized leave for personal illness or to care for sick family members during a pandemic - Set up policies for flexible hours and working from home - Modify group meetings that may help the virus spread - Consider how to care for people with special needs - Think about how you can rely less on public transportation - Schools and individuals should stock water and food - Wash hands frequently with soap and water - Get seasonal flu and pneumonia vaccinations - Businesses should appoint a pandemic coordinator and start training staff now to do other people’s jobs - Schools and workplaces should provide infection control supplies such as soap, hand sanitizer and tissues Plan’s assumptions The plan operates on assumptions based on previous flu pandemics. These include: - Everyone will be susceptible to the new virus - About 30 percent will become ill during the pandemic, with 40 percent of school children infected and 20 percent of working adults - About 40 percent of workers will stay at home during the peak two weeks of a pandemic wave - Some people will be infected but not ill and they can spread the virus - About half of all those ill will seek medical care - Between 200,000 and 1.9 million Americans will die, depending on how fatal the virus is - It takes about two days for a person to show symptoms after being infected, and they can infect others for half a day to a whole day before they become ill - On average, each infected person will infect two others - Epidemics will last 6 weeks to 8 weeks in each community and will come in several waves lasting two to three months each