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<br /> <br />2021 Multijurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan <br /> <br />Responses to Public Health Emergencies <br />A disease with a high CFR may require a suppressive strategy (i.e. quarantine, or lockdown), whereas when CFR <br />is low, either naturally or because of available interventions such as vaccines, a mitigation strategy is likely to be <br />more effective at reducing total deaths will resulting in substantially less economic damage (Davies, 2020). <br /> <br />Contact tracing is a public health practice that health departments use to identify and notify people who have been <br />exposed to someone with an infectious disease. Public health workers reach out to these exposed people to tell <br />them that they have been in close contact with an infected person and to give them information and support to <br />help them keep themselves and their loved ones safe. Public health departments have used contact tracing for <br />decades to fight the spread of infectious diseases like measles, tuberculosis, syphilis, and HIV (Centers for <br />Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). <br /> <br />There is not much warning time for health or pandemic events. The most commonly relied upon warning signal is <br />the appearance of early cases of a disease within a population. The Health Alert Network is the CDC’s primary <br />method of sharing cleared information about urgent public health incidents with public information officers; <br />federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local public health practitioners; clinicians; and public health laboratories. The <br />Health Alert Network collaborates with federal, state, territorial, tribal, and city/county partners to develop <br />protocols and stakeholder relationships that will ensure a robust interoperable platform for the rapid distribution <br />of public health information (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021a). <br /> <br />Climate Change Impacts on the Hazard <br />Climate change is expected to have an impact on health hazards. Projected increases in hot days and extreme heat <br />events will increase the risk of heat-associated deaths. Air quality impacts and drier conditions may exacerbate <br />respiratory and cardiovascular conditions through greater concentrations of pollution and allergens. Prolonged <br />droughts from climate change can also affect the quality of drinking water (Centers for Disease Control and <br />Prevention, 2020). <br /> <br />The California 4th Climate Assessment finds that Bay Area public health is threatened by a number of climate- <br />related changes, including more extreme heat events, increased air pollution from ozone formation and wildfires, <br />longer and more frequent droughts, and flooding from sea level rise and high-intensity rain events. Heat waves <br />alone pose increased health risks due to urban heat islands and lack of local experience and cooling infrastructure <br />(air conditioning) in bayside cities. These risks are compounded for low-income communities. <br /> <br />18.1.2 Application to San Mateo County <br />San Mateo County, like the rest of the United States, was included in the March 2020 FEMA major disaster <br />declaration for the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. As of June 2021, the total cases in the county were 42,438, <br />with much of the explosion of cases occurring in the late months of 2020 and early months of 2021 (San Mateo <br />County Health, 2021). During the COVID-19 pandemic, San Mateo County Health Department partnered with <br />Qualtrics on creating web-based surveys to aid in case investigation and contact tracing processes (San Mateo <br />County Health, 2021a). <br /> <br />San Mateo County also dealt with effects from the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Camp Fremont in Menlo Park <br />reported the first death in September 1918. By December of that year, 131 community members had died of the <br />flu (McGovern, 2020). <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />18-4