CDC Interim Pre-pandemic Planning Guidance: Community Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Mitigation in the United States
Purpose
This document provides interim planning guidance for State, territorial, tribal, and local communities that focuses on several measures other than vaccination and drug treatment that might be useful during an influenza pandemic to reduce its harm. Communities, individuals and families, employers, schools, and other organizations will be asked to plan for the use of these interventions to help limit the spread of a pandemic, prevent disease and death, lessen the impact on the economy, and keep society functioning. This interim guidance introduces 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 suggests when these measures should be started and how long they should be used. The interim guidance will be updated when significant new information about the usefulness and feasibility of these approaches emerges.
