Recovering after a pandemic

[Amish Country]

We here grasp the enormity and serious consequences of a pandemic with high CFR. Good for humanity pandemics historically tend to burn them selves out fairly quickly. This will lead to a long road of recovery for survivors. Much will have to be rebuilt and relearned. Helping to gather the information and tools to facilitate this process will be a major undertaking. Dr. Michael Osterholm suggested:

"....I will focus on what we can do to better prepare for the collateral damage of the next pandemic, rather than on preparing for the pandemic itself."

See Flutrackers thread:
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=79811&highlight=osterholm

This is a major strategy shift and worth supporting. This thread is to discuss and propose resources, tools and strategies that may assist the recovery process after a pandemic.

One resource I'd like to mention are local libraries and depositories. Maybe we cannot convince national politicians or even families and friends to do more to prepare for a pandemic. One thing that many of us may be able to do is to support our local libraries and convince the library staff and directors to have hard copy materials on hand that would assist in rebuilding after a pandemic.

Books on:
Bereavement issues
Supportive care for families with disabled members
First aid
Sanitation and food safety
How too books

I'm sure the specialists here at Flutrackes can add more specific references to this list.

Link for a listing of depositories in the US
http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/deplib/countries/usa.htm

 

[tropical]

Re: Recovering after a pandemic

Unfortunately, in our world of technology/market/work globalisation, it is a long way from books to the final product.

Mainly, those are past days when we can built machines from a scrach and when communications were mainly wired part machines.

Now things are driven by microdevices of high technology, which most parts production are outsourced elsewhere where labour is cheap.
An failure in those countries would mean a failure in spare parts/etc.

Basic things as some elementary food/etc. can be reached by Archimedian means, but get after an big holocaust enaugh modern technology parts without have enaugh operative factories/workforce would be dificult.
We can look now for a small example at the FT oil thread, and the production facilities waiting reasons.

 

[Amish Country]

Re: Recovering after a pandemic

Topical's post reinforces the point that initially after a pandemic or most major emergencies life may become a lot more local. Local resources both human and otherwise may become much more important than those too far away to access.

Knowing how to set up a neighborhood watch committee, or purify water may be more initially more important to rebuilding than getting a replacement zip drive for a computer. Knowing whom to call locally to help get a road cleared or help get a sewer unclogged may directly affect the quality of life for a family or neighborhood. Hopefully this and additional information will be available from local libraries and government offices.

While I think that neighborhood watch committees may be important I stress this is not vigilantism and needs to be coordinated and overseen by local authorities.


http://www.usaonwatch.org/pdfs/WatchManual.pdf

 

[kezza01]

Re: Recovering after a pandemic

the work that i am doing is directly related to this. i am working with our local, regional and state level community recovery committees to encourage them to commence their pandemic recovery planning now.

we have a network of such committees across our state who are involved in recovery after natural disasters. more recently they have become increasingly involved in other disasters (for example last year's equine influenza outbreak). as a result we have a network of service-providers at a local level who understand their communities and have established relationships with each other.

and each year, my work unit expects them to prepare a plan showing how they will manage providing recovery services in their area. in fact, it is a legislative requirement.

this year, we have specifically introduced and expectation that each committee will clearly address their roles in relation to a pandemic. initially, we expect each committee to commence and document discussions about how they will provide services during an outbreak. this is built on the principle that recovery starts prior to an event happening - we plan for recovery.

for the next four months, it will be my job to ensure that each of our committees has the resources and guidelines that they need to prepare more detailed operational plans. i am also working across government and non-government organisations to document the tasks that they need to undertake to manage the social impacts of a pandemic. built into this will be an expectation that annually, each responsible agency will report to our state disaster management group on their progress.

our focus is directly on recovery.

 

[tropical]

Re: Recovering after a pandemic

I agree with AC that the community recovery part must be implemented also, if possible, jointed with the pre-pandemic med. preps.
As seen in the kezza01 post, he is the man for such implementation there.
Cong. for your timely field preparedness.

I hope that other more populated regions have such implementations, and corroborated it by laws also.
From the post:
"and each year, my work unit expects them to prepare a plan showing how they will manage providing recovery services in their area.
in fact, it is a legislative requirement."

 

[kezza01]

Re: Recovering after a pandemic

we've just had the initial workshop. 30 representatives of 28 government and non-government agencies attended which was really good. their feedback has been incorporated into a draft strategy document. the next step is meeting individually with all the agencies to discuss the roles and responsibilities identified and negotiate their agreement to fulfill these.

hopefully, before christmas i will be able to report that all agencies have agreed to undertake specific activities. then in january/february next year i would like to be able to report that we have got our main disaster management committee endorsement.

all of our community recovery committees across the state have agreed to spend the next year discussing and refining their local-level plans and inter-agency agreements.