Terrorism drill needs more volunteers

Smallpox is coming to North Idaho, and if you act now you can still get it. Plus a free lunch.

The Panhandle Health District and police and emergency services are staging the second public phase of an emergency disaster drill Saturday in Sandpoint, and volunteers are needed to act as patients who clog a smallpox vaccination clinic and strain its staff to the utmost.

The health district is hoping for 500 or 600 volunteers. So far, said Panhandle Health’s Sara Fladeland, about 250 from all over North Idaho have signed up. Volunteers, expected to commit about 90 minutes to the exercise, will be offered a free barbecue lunch after the drill. The exercise is scheduled to run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., but volunteers will have staggered start times and need not be present for the entire episode.

The drill is twofold: Part is a test of the health district’s mass vaccination capabilities, and the other is a test of local law enforcement’s ability to react to a terror attack. The exercise began March 19 when the health district and emergency workers in the five northern counties received word that terrorists may have released smallpox spores on several commercial airplane flights, including one that landed in Seattle. The drill assumed some potentially infected passengers, airline workers or family members were headed here.

One of the main tasks was opening eight vaccination centers – seven in schools and one at the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Wellness Center – and securing enough smallpox vaccine for every person in North Idaho, an estimated 180,000 doses.

Saturday’s drill is to imagine the scene at one of the vaccination centers, said Panhandle Health’s information officer, Susan Cuff.

“What we want to determine is how we move the general public through a clinic if we are ordered to provide vaccination for everyone in the five northern counties,” Cuff said. At 250 volunteers, “We still have enough, but we want to stretch the staff.”

Volunteers will be screened and sorted at the start of the process. Some may have smallpox and will be sent to a care clinic. Some will report having been in contact with someone who has smallpox and will be sent to a contact clinic.

Everyone else will go through the vaccination clinic and will use their own histories when they are screened for allergies, autoimmune issues or pregnancy – factors that could weigh against getting the shot. During the drill, health care workers – and there will be about 120 on hand – may be told the risk of epidemic outweighs the risk of vaccination.

Cuff said hundreds of medical histories from real people will throw enough curveballs and monkey wrenches at the staff that it is expected to be a good exercise.

“We want to exercise now and figure out what the issues are before we have a real emergency,” she said.

One “strange-but-true” fact that’s emerged from this drill is news that the government really does have a dose of smallpox vaccine for every person in the country. The doses, some dating back decades, have been stored in secret refrigerators, and North Idaho could have all its needed doses in a couple of days after a bioterrorism attack, emergency workers said.