Scientists around the world have been talking about the threat of a deathly pandemic for many years, however, the current outbreak demonstrated that despite all warnings, on the global stage, governments and global organizations weren’t ready for the reality.
Nevertheless, on a local level, many communities including Estevan appeared to be more proactive.
So far Estevan hasn’t had any cases of COVID-19. The city was fast to react when things started quickly moving almost two months ago, and was successful in imposing measures needed to protect the population, which also played a role in how the situation developed here.
The Mercury reached out to Helen Fornwald, the city’s emergency measure organization (EMO) co-ordinator, to find out what allowed us to reorganize many vital processes in a timely manner.
“We were well prepared. We meet on a regular basis … We do have a lot of situations that we respond to with emergency services. We work well with emergency services. And we do have a tabletop (exercise a) minimum once a year, so I felt that we were prepared,” said Fornwald.
The earlier pandemic plan was put together by the City of Estevan in 2004 following the SARS outbreak. Later, when H1N1 hit in 2009, the existing plan was updated and after the crisis was over, remained in place for the future. It’s been in place until 2020 when COVID-19 changed almost everything.
“When coronavirus hit, we actually updated the City of Estevan pandemic plan again. We did that at the beginning of March,” said Fornwald. “With viruses, it follows the same template, but every virus is different.”
Preparedness allowed Estevan’s EMO to react fast and efficiently. Fornwald also outlined that the community has been very responsive throughout the entire emergency.
“I’m really thankful for the community support and (for following) social distancing.”
Up until the current pandemic, the Estevan EMO had been meeting on a monthly basis. Since March, they started meeting on a weekly basis via conference calls, supplying everyone onboard with the most up-to-date information and to ensure that they are following and imposing the most recent Saskatchewan Health Authority recommendations and restrictions.
The COVID-19 pandemic plan covers the purpose of it with city alert phases, which include the city pandemic mitigation phase in phase 1, the alert period in phas3 2, and the response period in phas3 3. It also goes through the EMO communication strategy, the service level priorities, business continuity plan and legislative information. They have the guidelines on reporting for being sick and dealing with possible sick at work situations. The pandemic plan also has a section covering adequate recommended personal protective equipment (PPE) as well as preventative measures and best practices. They also have the department services priorities with the pandemic.
Fornwald pointed out that the plan assumed always having PPE in stock for any kind of a virus outbreak. However, because of the nature of this particular pandemic, they had to order some additional supplies to ensure there wouldn’t be any shortages.
Even though the city had a pandemic plan in place for many years, they haven't done any joint tabletop exercises dedicated to a possible virus spread. Fornwald noted that when the current emergency is over, they probably will plan to practise their response procedures for the possible future pandemics.
The tabletop exercises come from the local EMO. As a co-ordinator Fornwald sets up those activities in consultation with Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency aiming to work through emergencies that are the most probable for the region.
