Metro West Times

Anna Maria College issued the following announcement.

Anna Maria College Expert Discusses Coronavirus and Pandemic Preparedness

Dr. Greg Ciottone Leads College’s Health Emergency Management Program

Dr. Greg Ciottone, Medical Director of Anna Maria College’s Health Emergency Management Program, discusses Coronavirus, the public health response, how communities and organizations can prepare for pandemics and the future of emergency management. Anna Maria College offers a first of its kind graduate program, providing health professionals with the leadership, organization and communication skills to take on elevated roles during health emergencies and disaster events. Dr. Gregory Ciottone is a nationally recognized leader in the health emergency management field. He is author of the leading textbook in the field, Ciottone’s Disaster Medicine. He also holds an appointment as an associate professor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School.

This interview is featured on episode 83 of OA on Air (advance to the 20:05 minute mark to begin Dr. Ciottone's segment)

• Dr. Ciottone, is the panic over coronavirus warranted? How readily does this new coronavirus spread and how deadly is it?
• Panic is never warranted, rather an appropriate response based on the data is. The Coronavirus is not entirely understood yet but appears to spread in a fashion similar to influenza. Good personal hygiene practices like hand washing, coughing and sneezing into one’s elbow, use of hand sanitizer solutions, etc. all will limit transmission. What I tell people is to conduct themselves as they do during the influenza season.
• What do people need to know to protect themselves? Is the focus on the containment of the right operational response?
• Concerning self-protection, as stated above, personal hygiene practices are most important. Concerning the use of masks, people do not need to use masks everywhere they go. If you are ill, a mask is good to use so you do not spread to others. If you are caring for an infected patient as a healthcare worker, wearing a mask, such as an N95 mask is good to do as well. The practices used during annual influenza outbreaks should be used now.

In my opinion, we should make attempts to contain this outbreak, but at the same time understand that it will most likely spread throughout the world as influenza does. More than 1 billion people globally are infected by the influenza virus every year. I believe we will see similar numbers for COVID-19. Having said that, we must also understand that this is not the Ebola threat of 2014-15. At this time COVID-19 has an apparent mortality rate of 2%, though I suspect that will decrease as time goes on and we discover that more people are actually infected. To compare, mortality rates, influenza is typically .1-.2% but at times higher, SARS was 10%, and Ebola is 50-70%. Unlike Ebola, where 100% of infected cases required intensive utilization of hospital resources, over 80% of COVID-19 cases require no treatment at all, 15% require medical care, and 5% require intensive care.

• What are the top things a municipality or organization should be prepared to do during a pandemic?
• It is imperative that municipalities and organizations have functional emergency management (EM) infrastructure in order to develop preparedness plans for all emergencies. In the case of an outbreak like this, emergency managers should develop and update response plans based on data from the CDC and WHO. These plans will likely evolve over the course of the outbreak, so EM operations should be ongoing.
• We think of emergency management as a government role, but should the private sector do more?
• Emergency Management should be an integral part of all governmental and private sector organizations to some degree. Contingency planning is crucial for the development of resiliency and, as I say to my students: Better the planning than the plan. This is to say that because every disaster and crisis is different, it is better that you learn how to plan….how to pivot…..than to rely solely only on the plan itself, as it will surely change during the event.

In the wake of the growing number of natural and man-made disasters and disease outbreaks, the demand for trained professionals to anticipate and manage response efforts for these kinds of events has been steadily increasing. To meet this need, Anna Maria College is collaborating with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Fellowship in Disaster Medicine to provide a one-of-a-kind Master of Science in Health Emergency Management program for medical graduate students and trained health professionals, including physicians, nurses, physician assistants, paramedics and EMTs. More information about the Master’s Health Emergency Management Program is available at https://www.annamaria.edu/about-hem

Or for more information about Anna Maria Colleges Undergraduate Emergency Management go to this link https://www.annamaria.edu/em-school/emergency-management

Original source can be found here.

Source: Anna Maria College