April 28, 2009
On March 19, 2009, the Gazette-Enterprise reported that emergency management and their counterparts in Guadalupe County, Texas, had prepared for a mass vaccination program in the event of a pandemic. “Local officials have 36 hours to treat their entire population — in Guadalupe County that would be 115,000 people,” Ron Maloney writes for the newspaper.
Authorities in Guadalupe County have confirmed three cases of swine flu among high school students and are waiting for test results of for at least 11 more possible cases.
[efoods]”A massive call-up of volunteers that, in this county alone would take 1,000 medical professionals and lay people is required to prepare and operate five Points of Dispensing (PODs) at which the life-saving medications can be distributed.” (For more on the “POD” concept of mass vaccination, see Government “Template” for Mass Vaccination.)
Guadalupe County admits it does not currently have the resources to deal with a pandemic. “Guadalupe County Emergency Management Coordinator Dan Kinsey and his volunteer coordinator, Kay Hays, are speaking to local large employers and service clubs, seeking to compile a list of volunteers who can help.” Guadalupe County Emergency Management gave presentations to the Seguin Kiwanis Club and other community organizations.
Kinsey and Hays are preparing for a May 2 dress rehearsal of a pandemic disaster at the Navarro ISD. Volunteers will set up and operate a “drive through” POD in which they will take a practice run at registering, screening and pretending to inoculate 100 volunteers so they can identify whatever problems might come up and prepare to meet them.
Kinsey envisions five “drive-through” PODs operating 24 hours a day in 12-hour shifts that will require 100 volunteers for duties as varied as administering medications, filling out paperwork, distributing food or water, providing security or watching the children of other volunteers, according to the Gazette-Enterprise.
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