King County is well prepared to respond to flu

AS the number of swine-flu cases in North America continues to climb, King County residents will be reassured to know we are one of the best-prepared governments in the country to deal with a possible flu pandemic. For the past four years, I have been actively leading King County to become better prepared to withstand the impacts if a large number of flu cases develop in our region.

In 2005, in partnership with the Metropolitan King County Council, I requested the appropriation of nearly $6 million in general-fund money for pandemic flu preparedness. Although it was controversial at the time, it has proved prudent that our early planning included buying enough antiviral medication to protect the health of all of our regional first responders — every police officer, firefighter and ambulance crew in King County and its cities.

The catalyst for this early planning was a realization of the truly global nature of our regional economy. From busy international airports and ports to local businesses and a local economy with myriad global ties, we knew our wonderful access to the world could also serve as a frighteningly efficient distribution network for a pandemic.

Research showed a pandemic could affect not only regional governments, but businesses, schools, organizations, public events and individuals. So we worked with business and public-sector organizations to address critical public-safety, economic and operational concerns so that, in the event of a pandemic, we could keep people safer and reduce the spread of the disease and economic losses while keeping the region running.

King County worked internally and with other governments and businesses to create plans that specially address this region's preparedness, response and recovery from a potential influenza pandemic. I directed King County to take the lead on pandemic flu planning based on state law, which dictates our regional responsibility for both emergency management and public health.

We are also responsible for providing essential services, such as public transportation, waste disposal and treatment, and a variety of criminal-justice and human-services programs. Because of those roles, we continue to coordinate with federal, state and local emergency-management officials and all 39 cities in King County on activities to mitigate the effects of an influenza pandemic and enhance our region's emergency preparedness and pandemic flu response capacity.

I focused on leading regional partners in ensuring access to the resources we would need in an emergency, whether natural disaster or health-related. To that end, Public Health-Seattle & King County organized the King County Healthcare Coalition, a groundbreaking coalition of local health-care-system partners who worked to strengthen and coordinate our region's emergency-preparedness and -response capabilities. That included identifying health-care capacity, purchasing and stockpiling critical equipment and medical supplies, creating the capacity to add 500 beds to our health-care system in the event of an emergency, planning for the possibility of handling mass fatalities, and developing protocols for vaccine and/or medication prioritization and distribution. That foresight is why King County's strategies and methodologies are now being used as a model by local health departments across the country.

King County also led coordination efforts with the Port of Seattle, school districts, private and public educational and day-care facilities, and private and public gathering places such as stadiums, to ensure consistency, effectiveness and legal authorization to keep people away from each other to prevent the spread of illness and closure of facilities if needed.

History reminds us these global incidents have happened before and will continue to occur, just as they did in the influenza pandemics of 1918-19, 1957-58 and 1968-69. Each time, we learned new, sometimes difficult, lessons and become better prepared than we were in the past. Just as viruses mutate and change, we must adapt and be nimble in our response to their impacts.

We cannot eliminate all of the negative consequences of a pandemic, but better education and preparation by governments, private agencies, citizens and health-care systems will limit the impact. Together, we will survive this latest test of our preparation and coordination efforts and come through it with new lessons to improve our resiliency for the next time.