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Interview with Bill Hall, Dir. of Press Office, HHS
If this is in the wrong place, please move it.
As part of some work that I am doing, I contacted the media spokespeople at HHS and spoke to Bill Hall, Director of the Press Office regarding why there was a 2-week "Store food and water" directive when waves of influenza in any given community would likely endure 6-8 weeks. Here is his answer:
1) The guidance is related to looking at the wave of infection as a Bell Curve. At the earliest parts of the wave and at the last parts of that wave, they expect that food and supplies
will be available. They are expecting that at the peak of the wave of infection -- around 2 weeks or so -- food and other supplies may not be available. So...the 2 weeks is to tide people over for that period of time when supplies are limited and/or nonexistant when everone in that particular community was sick. It has nothing to do with risking exposure going to the food market. That was not even a consideration. They are not even thinking along those lines and I could tell he was surprised that I was thinking about SIP to avoid exposure for the entire wave.
2) When Leavitt went around on his 50-state tour, people hounded him for "the number of weeks" to have supplies prepared. Hall said they HAD to have a number and after much discussion and some community testing, they came up with two weeks. He added that many people can not afford to buy for more than that period and many cannot even buy for 2 weeks. I expressed my concern that there are many people who would prepare for more than 2 weeks if the govt. said it would be a good thing to do. He was surprised and emphasized that this was just guidance, not law. He said that communities and groups should come up with their own suggestions for how long they should store food.
He also mentioned that no one had ever showed concern over that wording. I suspect it's because people were not very flu-educated. He also said that they were carrying out over coming months a number of town hall meetings on community mitigation and hoped to develop better guidance.
I gave him some very specific ideas on how to improve the web site message which he said he would pass on to the people who developed the wording on the site.
He said the State Dept has a different approach with people overseas living in a variety of conditions.
He also said that what was on the site pandemicflu.gov is not "law" but guidance based on the best info they have. He stressed that communities and individuals could stock up for as long as they felt it was necessary. I suggested that he add that type of wording on the site.
Marilyn Bardsley
Executive Editor
Court TV's Crime Library
As part of some work that I am doing, I contacted the media spokespeople at HHS and spoke to Bill Hall, Director of the Press Office regarding why there was a 2-week "Store food and water" directive when waves of influenza in any given community would likely endure 6-8 weeks. Here is his answer:
1) The guidance is related to looking at the wave of infection as a Bell Curve. At the earliest parts of the wave and at the last parts of that wave, they expect that food and supplies
will be available. They are expecting that at the peak of the wave of infection -- around 2 weeks or so -- food and other supplies may not be available. So...the 2 weeks is to tide people over for that period of time when supplies are limited and/or nonexistant when everone in that particular community was sick. It has nothing to do with risking exposure going to the food market. That was not even a consideration. They are not even thinking along those lines and I could tell he was surprised that I was thinking about SIP to avoid exposure for the entire wave.2) When Leavitt went around on his 50-state tour, people hounded him for "the number of weeks" to have supplies prepared. Hall said they HAD to have a number and after much discussion and some community testing, they came up with two weeks. He added that many people can not afford to buy for more than that period and many cannot even buy for 2 weeks. I expressed my concern that there are many people who would prepare for more than 2 weeks if the govt. said it would be a good thing to do. He was surprised and emphasized that this was just guidance, not law. He said that communities and groups should come up with their own suggestions for how long they should store food.
He also mentioned that no one had ever showed concern over that wording. I suspect it's because people were not very flu-educated. He also said that they were carrying out over coming months a number of town hall meetings on community mitigation and hoped to develop better guidance.
I gave him some very specific ideas on how to improve the web site message which he said he would pass on to the people who developed the wording on the site.
He said the State Dept has a different approach with people overseas living in a variety of conditions.
He also said that what was on the site pandemicflu.gov is not "law" but guidance based on the best info they have. He stressed that communities and individuals could stock up for as long as they felt it was necessary. I suggested that he add that type of wording on the site.
Marilyn Bardsley
Executive Editor
Court TV's Crime Library