Effective Wednesday, 13 May 2009, the Carroll County Health Department will be suspending its daily Swine Flu Updates. Hopefully, this suspension will become permanent. This action is taken due to:

· Almost every State has been affected; there is very little public health purpose in continuing to report the escalating number of cases in each state – it’s here! The aggregate numbers for the nation are reported daily in the media and can be found on the CDC website.

· The State Health Department has closed its Swine Flu Emergency Operations Center and ceased its daily conference calls, focusing less on response and more on surveillance.

· The CDC has scaled down its operations.

· Carroll County has yet to be affected; the number of cases in the State are relatively small – approximately 0.76% of the confirmed cases in the nation. Consequently, there is little to recommend to the County concerning a public health response.

Updates may resume if some or all of the following occur:

· Carroll County has confirmed case(s)

· CDC makes substantial changes in its guidance for school closures, public gatherings, protocol for laboratory testing of patients suspected of having the H1N1 flu.

· The virus seems to be mutating into a more virulent strain (more sickness and deaths).

· The State Health Department and/or CDC ramp up operations.

· WHO raises its Global Pandemic Phase to SIX (full pandemic)

· Public health response recommendation changes for Carroll County

· Other considerations.