The bully has backed off, at least for now.

That's the latest word from health experts regarding the swine flu, a respiratory illness that has intimidated the nation since it first reared its viral head in Mexico a month ago.

However, preparing for this fall's regular flu season may prove more critical than usual, since the swine flu could swagger back into the county then, flexing its muscles and picking on more victims in the cooler, less humid conditions that viruses favor.

What also keeps health officials awake nights is the possibility of a new, more virulent flu strain making its way into Howard County and evolving into an influenza pandemic.

The prospect is not new. The county has been preparing for several years for such a cataclysmic event as a pandemic, said Dr. Peter Beilenson, the county health officer.

A pandemic is defined as a global outbreak of disease to which citizens have no immunity.

"There's always the potential that we will need to distribute anti-viral medications or vaccines quickly," he said.

"Something like the swine flu is exactly what we've been practicing for."

Pandemic exercise ongoing

In fact, county agencies, health-care providers and vital businesses are in the middle of an 18-month pandemic exercise being coordinated by Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Lab, in Laurel.

The drill, launched in February 2008, will gauge the preparedness of the county's first responders, communications network, and long-term continuity of operations to handle a flu pandemic or bio-terror attack, Beilenson said.

The exercise will culminate in a "two-day, full-blown community-based scenario played out in real time" in early summer, wrote Beilenson in a recent column on the Horizon Foundation's Web site.

"County government leaders and business owners and employees will all respond to a simulated avian flu outbreak without knowing how the scenario has been designed," he wrote.

The results will provide an overview of the county's short- and long-term preparedness.

"Just the fact that Howard County government has thought through their planning and is committing resources toward working with the private sector means there are obvious kudos to be given," said Ruth Vogel, program manager in the homeland protection business area at APL.

"This exercise will provide a more realistic opportunity for the county to assess its response capabilities" in a pandemic, she said.

In the meantime, some practice runs to test the county's readiness have occurred right under people's noses.

Many of those who got free flu shots by holding an arm out a car window did so for the convenience, but the annual drive-thru flu clinics are actually exercises to see how quickly the county can immunize its citizens.

"We pulled together our last clinic in an hour," Beilenson said, referring to the Nov. 2 drill. A total of 4,000 residents were seen in about five hours at health department headquarters in Columbia and at the county fairgrounds off I-70, he said.

As for the swine flu, the virus' evolution thus far has been very similar to the outline followed in a November 2007 pandemic exercise held in the county, Beilenson said.

"But this time we had to send out the message: 'This is real life -- this is not a drill.' "

'War room' meetings

To deal with the swine flu, daily meetings were held for weeks in the county Health Department's "war room," where multiple computers and white boards help staff to monitor the flu's progression, determine the county's day-to-day response to events and keep communication lines open, Beilenson said.

The county also quickly placed details about swine flu on its Web site and set up a flu information hotline.

Since the virus is waning, the last of those daily sessions was held May 7, he said. And with only 20 county cases tested by the state health department and none confirmed, local demand for information was not as high as it might have been, he said.

"I don't want to say that certain people cried 'Wolf,' since there are rational reasons for agencies reacting the way that they did," Beilenson said.

Richard Krieg, president and CEO of the Horizon Foundation, a health and wellness philanthropy based in Columbia, said the county is "really ahead of the curve" in emergency preparedness across the board.

Krieg is also chairman of the county's Community Emergency Response Network, which he founded in response to the 9/11 attacks on America. CERN's 40 member agencies also participate in pandemic exercises and have been meeting monthly for five years, Krieg said.

Sherry Adams, director of the Office of Preparedness and Response in the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said in a statement, "We work with Howard County very closely, and I know they are excellently prepared."

But Krieg noted that government readiness wouldn't be the only concern in a pandemic.

Successful emergency management leans heavily on individuals being prepared, since residents could be told to shelter in place in certain disasters, he said.

"Undeniably, with the media exposure we're seeing now, people are thinking about emergency preparedness more than ever before," he said. "It's difficult to gauge a community's level of readiness."

Current CERN recommendations call for residents to stock two weeks' worth of emergency supplies, more than double its previous advice to have a three- to five-day supply on hand, Krieg said. This change was made two months ago, long before the swine flu hit.

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