jon_norstog
03-14-2020, 03:38
The virus is here and it is spreading. How fast it spreads will determine how deep the s**t is that wem get into.
Thursday and Friday I volunteered at Emergency Management central through the Portland NET (Neighborhood Emergency Teams) program. NET sent out a request for volunteers and I signed up. I got a front row seat on the City-County-State response to the coronavirus breakout here.
Thursday the Governor, County Chair and Mayor were on TV/internet live saying they were going to do something, announcing schools and parks would be closed, there would be a moratorium on utility cutoffs and the City would halt sweeps of homeless camps and instead provide some level of service to them.
Emergency Management set up an “activation” called “Covid-19” and an Emergency Coordination Center and everyone got to work. The County Health Department is overall in-charge but is relying in Emergency Management for resources and coordination. By Friday afternoon an overall action plan was in place; looks like the NET volunteers are going to be pretty useful and a few of them are named into positions in the current action plan. The plan is good for one week and will probably be modified as the situation develops. Things are happening pretty fast, so there are daily end-of-day all staff meetings where everyone gets briefed. Everything is being documented. Meetings: lots of meetings! What I did was take meeting notes, get them reviewed, then file them electronically (plus handing over my paper notes)
The overall strategy is to buy time through voluntary measures like staying home, washing hands all the time, cleaning surfaces that get handled, etc; by prohibiting large gatherings (more than 250 people), and by closing schools, parks, libraries, etc. The idea is to slow down the spread of the virus so everybody doesn’t get sick at once and overload the hospitals, clinics, and providers. Also to start getting ready for a big increase in need for hospital beds, medicines, ventilators.
Last night it snowed. Today a call went out for volunteers at warming centers. They are not taking volunteers over 60 YO, otherwise I’d have gone and helped. More later.
jn
Thursday and Friday I volunteered at Emergency Management central through the Portland NET (Neighborhood Emergency Teams) program. NET sent out a request for volunteers and I signed up. I got a front row seat on the City-County-State response to the coronavirus breakout here.
Thursday the Governor, County Chair and Mayor were on TV/internet live saying they were going to do something, announcing schools and parks would be closed, there would be a moratorium on utility cutoffs and the City would halt sweeps of homeless camps and instead provide some level of service to them.
Emergency Management set up an “activation” called “Covid-19” and an Emergency Coordination Center and everyone got to work. The County Health Department is overall in-charge but is relying in Emergency Management for resources and coordination. By Friday afternoon an overall action plan was in place; looks like the NET volunteers are going to be pretty useful and a few of them are named into positions in the current action plan. The plan is good for one week and will probably be modified as the situation develops. Things are happening pretty fast, so there are daily end-of-day all staff meetings where everyone gets briefed. Everything is being documented. Meetings: lots of meetings! What I did was take meeting notes, get them reviewed, then file them electronically (plus handing over my paper notes)
The overall strategy is to buy time through voluntary measures like staying home, washing hands all the time, cleaning surfaces that get handled, etc; by prohibiting large gatherings (more than 250 people), and by closing schools, parks, libraries, etc. The idea is to slow down the spread of the virus so everybody doesn’t get sick at once and overload the hospitals, clinics, and providers. Also to start getting ready for a big increase in need for hospital beds, medicines, ventilators.
Last night it snowed. Today a call went out for volunteers at warming centers. They are not taking volunteers over 60 YO, otherwise I’d have gone and helped. More later.
jn