Delaware’s Division of Public Health (DPH) is looking for volunteers for an emergency preparedness exercise it plans to hold later this month.
The three day exercise is planned for Saturday, September 28, 2019.
Department of Public Health’s medical countermeasures coordinator Shawn Foster says it's held once every 5 years.
It’s basically for us to evaluate our ability to request support from the Federal government and to distribute and dispense things to the population of the State," said Foster. "When we’re doing a full-scale exercise like this, what we want to test is how quickly we can move people and process them through the different areas - registration and then where they would actually receive the medication(s). This process or this exercise, helps us simulate what that would be like in a real-world situation.”
The exercise will be held at two locations - Delaware Tech’s Stanton Campus in Newark and Del Tech’s Terry Campus in Dover.
The Dept of Public Health’s Office of Preparedness director Tim Cooper says they hope to get 300 volunteers to help at those two sites.
"The volunteers will be standing in line to simulate receiving medical countermeasures - or medicines in this case. We’re going to be distributing medications. So they will simulate a population showing up at our points of dispensing," said Cooper.
Cooper and Foster note the exercise is an excellent opportunity for DPH staff to test the agency’s response capability and address any areas that need improvement.
Information on how to volunteer is available here.
