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Tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes as destructive wildfires roar across the West Coast, and many of them could end up in shelters, raising potential health risks during the coronavirus pandemic.
The shelters’ impact on public health is “an unusually important and under-researched topic,” said Karl Kim, executive director of the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, which trains first responders. “People are really scrambling right now to figure out how this affects the guidance and messaging and so forth.”
Large disaster response organizations like the American Red Cross are requiring masks and trying to keep evacuees at least 6 feet (2 meters) apart, but it can be difficult for people already reeling from a disaster to consistently follow the rules.
Kathy Gee, 68, has diabetes and other conditions that make her vulnerable to the virus, but that didn’t kept her from evacuating from her farm in Molalla, Oregon, to a shelter in Portland.
“If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. I’m tough,” she said. “I’ve survived lots of things. I can survive that.”
At the Oregon State Fairgrounds in the capital of Salem, groups of maskless evacuees gathered in a parking lot and a barn Friday, talking about the unprecedented wildfires that have destroyed an area greater than the size of Rhode Island. Volunteers wearing disposable masks walked from group to group, taking down their information and asking what they need for the days ahead.
Signs plastered the doors of the exposition center, where cots were set up, with safety guidelines for both wildfires and the pandemic. Inside, nearly everyone wore masks, likely because volunteers manning the door reminded them to do so.
The fires in California, Oregon and Washington state have killed several people and left dozens missing. In the three states, 6,300 are already in emergency Red Cross shelters and hotels and as many as 50,000 more could be before the blazes are under control, said Brad Kieserman, vice president of disaster operations and logistics for the American Red Cross.
Normally, they’d be gathering in school gymnasiums and meeting halls, sleeping on cots and eating at buffet lines, all provided by organizations like the Red Cross, Salvation Army and other faith and community groups. But because COVID-19 is airborne and easily spread in close quarters, gathering places are potential hotbeds of transmission. That’s got disaster assistance groups taking a different approach.
“Noncongregate shelters is a new pandemic thing,” Kieserman said. “The last thing we want to have happen is people to remain in the path of a wildfire or hurricane because they think it’s safer to do that than risk a shelter.”
The Red Cross is trying to prevent the virus from spreading at shelters by regularly testing staffers, cleaning and disinfecting often, requiring masks and screening evacuees for signs of illness. Those who are sick or have symptoms are sent to special isolation shelters and kept away from one another. When possible, displaced residents are sent to hotels instead of group …read more
Source:: News Headlines
