Los Angeles County health officials plan smallpox vaccination drill

Pasadena Star News ^ | June 17, 2004 | Richard Irwin

[FairOpinion]

CARSON -- Los Angeles County's Department of Health Services will hold a mass smallpox vaccination drill Wednesday at the Carson Center. "We will have more than 1,000 volunteers practice how we would vaccinate the residents of the county in case of an outbreak of disease,' said Heidi Stevenson of the county Health Services Department.

On its Web site, the county notes: "Although the risk of an actual smallpox outbreak is very low, the consequences of such an event would be great. It would be very important for us to be able to vaccinate millions of people in a very short time.'

"Our approach is to test the logistics to make sure we can get the folks vaccinated quickly. This is absolutely critical. An extensive smallpox plan has been developed and we're testing a piece of it. It's one thing to plan it on paper and another thing to test it in the field,' Fielding said.

The exercise is the next step in the county's plans to prepare for any biological attack.

[FairOpinion]

Of course they could just make the vaccine available for real, and solve the problem.

[FairOpinion]

Related article:

Onondaga County (NY) holds smallpox drill
http://news10now.com/content/all_news/?ArID=21792&SecID=83

Onondaga County is getting ready. Emergency responder's, county officials, and several other agencies are preparing for a smallpox outbreak, if it ever became reality.

Smallpox is one of our chief concerns. It's one of the highly feared bioterrorist agents.

[Paleo Conservative]

Why just a drill? Wouldn't it be just as easy to actually vaccinate a few thousand people?

[Indie]

Making it available for real would indeed solve the problem. Realize that ahead of you and your CHILDREN in the miles long lines, will also be the MILLIONS of illegal immigrants competing for your children's lives among available vaccine.

I'll bet you never thought of it that way?

[AngrySpud]

I do similar planning for the county health department I work for. In an outbreak scenario, public health workers would be expected to offer vaccination to the entire population in less than ten days. Impossible unless you have thousands of trained volunteers, all willing and able to work around the clock -- for a city or county of one million, you'd need at least 5,000 volunteers.

[bonesmccoy]

yes, but that would actually make sense and it would actually create value.

[txhurl]

Hmmm.

[kimosabe31]

I don't want to infer anything here but does this mean all Los Angelenos must go to Carson to receive their immunization or will it be available in other parts of the county.

Why are these damn fools not demanding the feds enable them to proceed immediately with vaccinnations rather than wait for an emergency?? I guess that's the question anyone with any sense is asking. This is an excellant example of what little sanity exists within almighty government.

Allowing government bureaucracy to manage our survival of terrorist attack will only assure the success of such an attack.

[kimosabe31]

Allowing government bureaucracy to manage our survival of terrorist attack will only assure the success of such an attack.

What happens if the attack occurs on say a federal holiday? Do we all wait till the government workers get back from their long weekend to get our immunization? This would be hilarious if were not so tragic.

The government is really getting off to a great start in managing this potential disaster...by withholding vaccine they can make the disaster ten times worse in keeping with their long track record. Every thing the government touches turns to shit. Why would this be any differant?? Can anyone think of any reason for optimism here.

[FairOpinion]

"Allowing government bureaucracy to manage our survival of terrorist attack will only assure the success of such an attack."

===

I couldn't agree with you more.

One of my major concerns is exactly this -- that many people will die UNNECESSARILY, when their deaths could have been avoided by vaccinating people against smallpox NOW. They are already vaccinating for diseases, which aren't nearly as dangerous and fatal, yet, are playing Russian Rulette with our lives.

Smallpox as a terrorist attack would break out in multiple places simultaneously, with hundreds or even thousands infected, before it gets diagnosed and in some exercises ("Dark Winter", with much more benign assumptions about the attack, millions died.