First responders have a critical role in emergency care and must continue to provide this essential service and fill the many emergency response roles in a community. The first responder community includes: fire, emergency medical services (EMS), law enforcement, emergency management and 911 telecommunications. During a global pandemic, workloads will increase, and staff sizes will diminish as employees and their families become ill or are quarantined. Contingency planning can help reduce the worst impacts; smart planning can save lives.
The coronavirus pandemic is impacting nearly every element of public life, and first responders are increasingly on the frontlines of the crisis. EMS workers are struggling to keep up with the influx of 9-1-1 calls, police departments are facing a worst-case scenario with large numbers of the workforce out sick or in quarantine, and already shorthanded fire departments are keeping communities safe amid volunteer shortages. First responders are being put in situations that were unfathomable only a short time ago, and public agencies can also take proactive steps to minimize potential risk for these essential workers. As incidents change in size, scope and complexity during the coronavirus pandemic, first responders must adapt to meet requirements. Operational planning for a pandemic includes scaling up preparedness efforts to meet the workload surge. This will include taking extra steps to protect themselves and their colleagues such as wearing more personal protective equipment (PPE), cleaning and sanitizing down areas and equipment to stop bacteria from spreading, maintaining social distancing when not operating in a medical emergency, and if sick must stay home, recover, and seek medical help if necessary for fear of getting more workers sick. Scaling up has been done by adding more resources to a single capability or service, and by adding more capabilities or services to the first responder system. Many workers on the frontlines of the coronavirus are likely to endure psychological trauma, stress, anxiety, and struggle to cope with the world we are all currently living in. It’s impossible to know what the long-term mental health impact of the epidemic will be, but leaders are doing the best they can to support first responders throughout the course of the pandemic. Resources have been set up to help EMS workers, firefighters, and law enforcement cope with the circumstances will be a critical aspect of sustaining a workforce after the virus has been contained and gone away. Supervisors should look out for first-responders struggling to cope with the stress, let workers know how to access counseling services, and let them know they are not alone we are all in this together.
During the Spanish Flu it was a different story back then since first responders didn’t have the medical technology or the supplies and resources, they have today to help fight the virus. During the Spanish Flu people and health officials didn’t know what the virus was or how to respond to it and fight it off. The United States experienced a severe shortage of professional nurses during the flu pandemic because large numbers of them were deployed to military camps in the United States and abroad. This shortage was made worse by the failure to use trained African American nurses, the American Red Cross issued an urgent call for volunteers to help nurse the ill. As the numbers of sick rose, the Red Cross put out desperate calls for trained nurses as well as untrained volunteers to help at emergency centers. In October of 1918, Congress approved a $1 million budget for the U. S. Public Health Service to recruit 1,000 medical doctors and more than 700 registered nurses. At one point there was a staggering number of new cases, reaching as high as 1,200 people each day. This in turn intensified the shortage of doctors and nurses. Additionally, hospitals in some areas were so overloaded with flu patients that schools, private homes and other buildings had to be converted into makeshift hospitals, some of which were staffed by medical students. By the summer of 1919, the flu pandemic came to an end, as those that were infected either died or developed immunity, as well as mandating the wearing of masks, social distancing and quarantine. Since the outbreak of the Spanish Flu there has been Developments since the 1918 pandemic include vaccines to help prevent flu, antiviral drugs to treat flu illness, antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections such as pneumonia, and a global influenza surveillance system with 114 World Health Organization member states that constantly monitors flu activity. There also is a much better understanding of non-pharmaceutical interventions–such as social distancing, respiratory and cough etiquette and hand hygiene–and how these measures help slow the spread of flu, and to help treat it.
Information for First Responders on Maintaining Operational Capabilities during a Pandemic (firstwatch.net)- Homeland Security Information for First Responders on Maintaining Operational Capabilities during a pandemic.
Information for First Responders on Maintaining Operational Capabilities During a Pandemic (fema.gov)- Homeland Security Information for First Responders on Maintaining Operational Capabilities during a pandemic.
Rapid Response was Crucial to Containing the 1918 Flu Pandemic | National Institutes of Health (NIH)- Rapid Response was Crucial to Containing the 1918 Flu Pandemic
The American Red Cross and Local Response to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: A Four-City Case Study (nih.gov)- The American Red Cross and Local Response to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: A Four-City Case Study
