The drill, which has taken place at UMass in past years finally expanded to the College's campus. The College, along with UMass' Mullins Center and Cooley-Dickinson Hospital, will serve as an emergency response center.
Organizations hope that the event will serve as an indicator of how prepared the College is in handling emergency situations. "The main purpose of the drill is really to test Amherst's ability to cope with a major public health emergency," said Mirah Curzer '08, a Student Health Educator (SHE).
Josh Stanton '08, another member of the exercise, emphasized the importance of precaution. "I think that this event is a good first step in ensuring that Amherst is prepared to handle an unlikely but difficult situation," he said. "There is no harm in preparing, but we could be quite thankful that we did."
As part of the drill, the College will serve as an emergency dispensing site for flu vaccinations. From 8:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. in the Keefe Health Center, participants, ranging from volunteer students and faculty to staff members, will be asked to follow an imagined scenario in which a flu virus is spreading across Massachusetts. In the scenario, the commonwealth is in a state of emergency.
All activities will occur as it would in a real emergency. Volunteers will follow procedures such as registering themselves and receiving shots. However, since the event follows a fake scenario, volunteers will receive no actual shots. In addition, the individual with the most fake immunizations will receive a prize.
The scenario also involves "sick" patients, individuals chosen to dramatize their illness. These "patients" are expected bring the event closer to reality.
Preliminary discussions for the emergency preparedness exercise took place before Spring Break with the belief that the time had come to prepare the College for potential contagious diseases. "We decided before Spring Break, it's really time that we act and do a drill," said Physician Assistant Edward McGlynn.
Members from the Keefe Health Center, Environmental Health & Safety and Campus Police will also be present to assist with the event, along with the Amherst College Emergency Medical Systems (ACEMS) and SHEs.
Curzer shared her desire to learn from the event. "From a personal standpoint, I hope to come away with a more realistic idea of what a public health emergency looks like and what can be done," she said.