Keep Your Museum Healthy This Flu Season
Your museum may have already been impacted by the spring 2009 H1N1 (swine) flu outbreak. Steps can be taken now to slow the spread of flu and to plan for how to respond if flu conditions become severe. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) offers many resources on H1N1, avian and pandemic flu. The site has information to help every sector of society--including government, businesses, schools, community organizations and individuals—prepare and respond appropriately. These documents may be of special interest and value as you plan: - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has compiled Preparing for the Flu Season (Including 2009 H1N1 Flu): A Communications Toolkit for Businesses & Employers. The toolkit includes questions and answers to guide planning and response, fact sheets about staying healthy at work for employers and employees, a poster to remind sick employees to go home, templates for communications with employees, and additional web resources.
- Last May, the CDC issued Guidance for Public Gatherings in Response to H1N1 Flu. The recommendations are for community situations, indoors and outdoors, in which crowding is likely to occur. The guidance may be subject to change as more information becomes available.
- HHS has a Child Care and Preschool Pandemic Influenza Planning Checklist that may be useful to museums serving children and their families. It includes planning & coordination, student learning & program operations, infection control policies & actions, and communications planning.
- The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services offers Community Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Mitigation. This detailed interim guidance uses a Pandemic Severity Index to characterize the severity of a pandemic, provides planning recommendations for specific interventions that communities may use for a given level of pandemic severity, and suggest when these measures should be started and how long they should be used.
In addition, the University of Michigan has compiled a list of reources on H1N1 flu in more than 20 languages.
