Chertoff: Planning for disaster requires everyone
Now I want to tell you, of course, that Secretary Leavitt at HHS and Secretary Johanns at USDA have been deeply involved with all parts of the federal government, under the president's direction, in developing response plans. And the good news is that, certainly with respect to the possibility of avian flu affecting birds, we have a lot of experience with this. The Department of Agriculture has dealt with major animal outbreaks in this country in past years. And whether it's mad cow or some kind of avian pathogen, USDA is very well practiced in dealing with this kind of illness from an agricultural standpoint. And their guidance is going to be critically important if we do some time later this year discover we have avian flu H5N1 in either wild birds or even domestic fox in this country.
State and local government also has a very critical role and a lot of experience dealing with this kinds of pathogens. But it's important, as we think about reaction to this, to make sure that at every step of the way as we engage, if we should have an avian flu outbreak, even simply among birds, that we think about how the public is going to react and that we appropriately communicate to the public what they need to do but also what they should not be afraid about.
Obviously, if we had avian flu we would need to monitor for human health, but we also need to make sure we get information out quickly and comprehensively and accurately so people know what they can do to protect themselves and so we don't have a panic that suddenly has all kinds of unintended consequences.
One of the things that it's my job to think about is all of the collateral things that fall out when you do have a health crisis, not just the medical consequences, but things like the people who become so worried they don't go into work and what the impact that has on our critical infrastructure. Because remember, in order to run your hospitals, you're going to need food, you're going to need water, you're going to need power. And so we want to make sure that people are and businesses are appropriately keeping those essential services running, even while the doctors and the medical community are worrying about what we need to do to protect people in terms of their human health. And that means, again, even as you function in your health care facilities, you need to be thinking not about your medical resources and supplies but, again, your generators, your ability to have some extra food and water, what your alternative supply chains would be, who your providers are, making sure your providers have identified ways to keep essential services flowing.
We're going to spend a lot of time on that, but this is not a top-down type of preparedness. It's in fact a preparedness that has to take place at every level. And we're going to be reminding people again and again that they need to have contingency plans in place.
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