Travis County Commissioners Court
May 12, 2009,
Item 1
1.
receive briefing and take appropriate action regarding the recent flu development and resulting public health issues in Travis County.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> sherri flemming, executive manager for health and human services and veterans services.
pete baldwin emergency services and linda Moore smith director of human resources management.
pete, do you want to start us off?
>> yes.
just an update, I have been trying toll map the update -- to map the updates from the health department.
coming in late in the afternoon.
currently as of yesterday afternoon, we have four confirmed and nine probable cases.
this is not unexpected.
we look for this based on the number of follow-ups we had.
many of these folks that are confirmed have already recovered and are doing quite well.
we will try to keep you updated on those numbers as we go along, as we stated before the emergency operations center has -- has stood down but we are actively monitoring the situation and now letting the -- the Austin Travis County health department take the lead in -- in getting those numbers for us.
that's really the update on the issue.
we have more things that need to be done, we really need to make sure that we push the public awareness aspect of it and promote good -- good hand hygiene.
>> thank you.
nice segue to my update with the court, that is what we are doing with the Travis County workforce, just really preventive measures, trying to -- to prevent an outbreak here within Travis County.
we were able to as we mentioned last week to get a notice out to the employees.
that particular notice is one that we mentioned would be bundled in both english and spanish that was actually distributed to the -- to the departments earlier this weekend.
some still picking them up, but also sent them electronically.
we appreciate the notice that the judge sent out through the voice message system which was very much appreciated and commented on by the workforce itself.
what we did in the employee notice and we mentioned to you that we would identify ways that they could indeed stay healthy.
and it's not just around the outbreak itself, but it's just general conscious raising about what you can do.
if there's any kind of flu or public concern in terms of health that that's out within the community.
in addition to that, we have released to the elected and appointed officials as well as department heads what we call the workforce management plan.
in that particular plan it provides really four distinct areas of general information about the swine flu or influenza in general.
ways that they can minimize the risk of infection, which really mirror what we said to the employees.
we also provide a great deal of information on how they might manage employee absences.
within that doubt identify the existing policies that exist that they would yield to or refer to if indeed they had sicknesses and absences related to flu-related symptoms.
the final portion of that was the business continuity plan.
in that we were of course providing the public service, trying to share with them ways that they might start thinking in terms of securing or end suring that their operations continued to be up and in case there is -- there is an outbreak in order to provide the services to the public.
so we feel that we communicated as we had mentioned to you last week that we would.
not only to the employees directly, but also to our officials and supervisors on how to manage the situation that we have before us.
which we're pleased to hear is declining based on pete's report.
>> and in terms of our collaboration with the city of Austin, and our public health services we have a couple of things to update you on.
some of which are in response to your questions last week, the first is daily media updates has been discontinued.
the media is encouraged to use their normal channels to receive this information regarding this outbreak.
all of the schools in Travis County are open and all usual extracurricular activities have been resumed.
there is some workforce surveillance that continues and also the city and county websites have been updated and continue to be updated with flu information in both english and spanish.
information has been developed to direct individuals with h1n1 flu symptoms to neighborhood centers for screening.
the indigent care and 311 developed a way for ensuring individuals without a medical home can be treated and tested as necessary.
the daily media updates were also sent to spanish language print and broadcast media.
univision requested a span language interview that was provided by the health and human services city of Austin with their manager perez.
those are some of the -- of the items that came up during our discussion last time, we wanted to make sure that you were aware that information had been disseminated in our community in both english and spanish.
so -- so -- so staff recommendation at this time that we would discontinue the weekly updates to the court but that we would have the opportunity to come back to you should the situation in our community change orb should there been additional information we felt the court as well as the community would need to receive.
the surveillance of this particular outbreak will continue, you can expect to continue to receive the updates that you have been receiving in your mailboxes as long as the surveillance activities have been going on.
but we certainly would encourage, you know, folks to continue to see this as a public health opportunity to renew some of the practices that help us to -- to slow the spread of disease and to continue practicing good hygiene and to -- to certainly stay home if they feel ill and, you know, do all of the things that we know it takes to stay healthy.
so with that I will give it back to pete do you want to talk about the eoc command center.
>> well, as I said we have stood down, but we are actively monitoring.
actually we are getting a lot of our information not only through the cdc but through region 7 health department.
we continue to act, we do that.
as soon as I get updates I will be forwarding them on to you as you have received them in the last couple of days.
>> what action, if any, do we need to take today?
>> I don't know of any action we need today, sir.
>> let us know when to put it back on.
>> yes, sir.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 2:30 PM