During more relaxed times – say, when there are no suspected cases of pandemic influenza on campus – Andre Le Duc spends his days preparing for an emergency.
Since April 25, the director of University’s Emergency Management Program has been waiting to turn those plans into action should more suspected cases of the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, turn up in Lane County or on campus.
Le Duc sat down with the Emerald on Monday to talk about what he’s been doing the past couple weeks, during which time he said his wife “has seen me for a total of 6 hours and my kids have forgotten who I am.”
ODE: What plans does the University have to deal with a pandemic flu outbreak?
The University’s Incident Management Team has an Incident Command System, Le Duc said, that outlines plans for how to deal with a variety of emergencies including pandemic flu, earthquakes and fires. The University uses the same incident management system as Lane County and the state of Oregon and remains in close contact with both.
How the community responds to an outbreak will be different from how the University responds, he said. The team has been developing different scenarios so they wouldn’t be caught off-guard and has emergency response plans for different stages of flu outbreak. They look at what the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization are saying about how the virus is progressing, and work with Lane County Public Health and Oregon’s Public Health Division. It’s a novel virus but has been similar to a seasonal flu. While the seasonal flu is bad, it can be combatted with awareness and prevention techniques such as reminding people to wash their hands and use hand sanitizer.
ODE: What more can you tell us about the suspected case of H1N1 at Moss Street Children’s Center?
The team gets all of its information from Lane County Public Health. It’s a suspected case, Le Duc said, and he won’t know whether it’s a confirmed case until Tuesday or Wednesday. A lot of what the University will do in response to any suspected or confirmed cases depends on where the affected individual had traveled and what kind of interactions they had.
Le Duc said he will not make any decision on his own about whether to cancel classes or make other closures. The incident management team will interact with a policy group that includes the president’s executive staff, the University’s general counsel and the athletic director. The policy group ultimately makes the decision about any closures, in consultation with Lane County Public Health, Oregon’s Public Health Division and the Oregon University System chancellor’s office. No decision is without consultation, Le Duc said.
ODE: How will students be notified in the event of a closure?
We would not use the UO Alert! text message warning system. Students would be notified by e-mail lists and the Incident Management Team would work with the University’s Office of Communication and local media to alert students and community members of any closure. The team is briefed daily on new developments and won’t wait until a confirmed case occurs, Le Duc said. The team looks at suspected cases and the circumstances surrounding them to make decisions to safeguard and protect the University, he said. Le Duc would not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the Moss Street case, however. That gets into medical confidentiality issues, he said. But “with the people who need to know and make decisions, these things are shared.”
More information is available online at em.uoregon.edu
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