Obama Declares Swine Flu a National Emergency

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Een hoop moeite om te laten zien dat je géén Bush bent.
Niet méér zieken en doden dan met een 'typical winter flu' en tóch veel
paniek.

Overigens volgens mij een kans voor Klink om die overtollige vaccines
zonder verlies van de hand te doen.

Groet / Cees

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/us/politics/25flu.html
October 25, 2009
Obama Declares Swine Flu a National Emergency
By JACKIE CALMES and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

WASHINGTON — President Obama has declared the swine flu outbreak a
national emergency, allowing hospitals and local governments to speedily
set up alternate sites and procedures if needed to handle any surge of
patients, the White House said on Saturday.

The declaration came when long lines formed around the country for the
swine flu vaccine, with distribution that has not met demand.

Flu activity — virtually all of it the swine flu — is now widespread in
46 states, a level that federal officials say equals the peak of a
typical winter flu season. Millions of people in the United States have
had swine flu, known as H1N1, either in the first wave in the spring or
the current wave.

Although no one has an exact count of the flu’s mortality, Dr. Thomas R.
Frieden of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday
that it had killed more than 1,000 Americans and hospitalized over
20,000.

The emergency declaration, which Mr. Obama signed Friday night, has to
do only with hospital treatment, not with the vaccine.

A spokesman for the C.D.C., David Daigle, said he had not heard of any
hospital that has faced a surge of patients so large that it had to set
up a triage area or a treatment unit off-site. He knew of hospitals in
Texas and Tennessee that had set up triage tents in their parking lots
in order to screen patients with fever or other flu symptoms, but those
have been on hospital grounds, he said.

Against this backdrop, administration officials emphasized that Mr.
Obama’s declaration was largely a bureaucratic move that did not signify
any unanticipated worsening of the outbreak of the H1N1 flu nationwide.
Nor, they said, does it have anything to do with the recent reports of
vaccine shortages.

“This is not a response to any new developments,” said Reid Cherlin, a
White House spokesman. “It’s an important tool in our kit going
forward.”

Public and private health officials were administering swine flu shots
at scores of locations around the country this weekend.

In Chicago, health officials began giving free vaccinations at six City
College locations on Saturday, and within hours officials were turning
away hundreds of people because supplies had been exhausted.

Health officials said that they distributed 1,500 doses at each of the
sites and that they began the vaccinations at 9 a.m. But two hours
before the centers opened, there were already hundreds of people waiting
in line for the numbered cards that were needed to get the vaccination.
With the number of patients outrunning the supply, officials said that
they would give priority to patients who fell into the higher-risk
groups.

The seasonal flu typically hospitalizes 200,000 people in the United
States each year and kills 36,000. But over 90 percent of the deaths
from seasonal flu are among the elderly, while the swine flu mostly
affects the young.

The country is in the midst of a serious shortage of swine flu vaccine;
only about 16 million doses are available. There is no overall shortage
of seasonal flu vaccine — 85 million doses have already shipped, and the
regular flu season has not started. But there are temporary local
shortages.

The president’s signature on the declaration fulfills the second of two
conditions necessary under federal law to empower Kathleen Sebelius, the
secretary of Health and Human Services, to issue waivers expediting
health care facilities’ ability to transfer patients to other locations.
The first condition was met in April when the Department of Health and
Human Services declared a public health emergency, which Ms. Sebelius
renewed for a second time on Oct. 20.

The declaration allows hospitals to apply to the Department of Health
and Human Services for waivers from laws that in normal times are
intended to protect patients’ privacy and to ensure that they are not
discriminated against based on their source of payment for care,
including Medicare, Medicaid and the states’ Children’s Health Insurance
Program.

As a practical matter, officials said, the waiver could allow a hospital
in danger of being overwhelmed with swine flu patients to remove them,
and any emergency room visitors suspected of having the illness, to a
location such a local armory to segregate such cases for treatment.

In a few cases, hospitals already have set up tents on their sites. But
under federal law, if the patients are sent off-site, the hospital might
be refused reimbursement for the care as a sanction.

Since last winter’s more isolated cases of swine flu, the expectation
that the virus would return with a vengeance in this flu season had
posed a test of the Obama administration’s preparedness. Officials are
mindful that the previous administration’s failure to better prepare for
and respond to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 left doubts that dogged
President George W. Bush to the end of his term.

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********