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The evaluations are in for Wednesday's state-sponsored regional exercise that tested the ability of the area to respond to a flu pandemic. KSMU's Missy Shelton reports.
The evaluations are in for Wednesday's state-sponsored regional exercise that tested the ability of the area to respond to a flu pandemic.
Specifically, health officials practiced their plan to handout vaccinations to large numbers of people.
Kevin Gipson is director of the Springfield-Greene County Health Department.
Gipson says the health officials did learn from the exercise.
He says many of the volunteers who played the role of patients were students who did not drive to the dispensing site Central High School.
He says parking and traffic could be a major problem if members of the public, not just students had to travel to dispensing sites to receive medication.
Gipson says the exercise was a valuable tool for area health professionals and should demonstrate to the public that the city and county are ready to handle a flu pandemic.
These kinds of state-sponsored exercises are rare, taking place usually once a year.
Gipson says he doesn't anticipate having another one in Springfield in the near future but he says health officials will continue to do smaller exercises.
Gipson says the lessons learned from Wednesday's exercise will be used to improve the department's plan for the mass distribution of vaccines.
