Much like a wildfire response or similar emergency situation, a collection of about 100 agencies has been in tight communications since the coronavirus outbreak began more than a month ago.

Liane Jollon, director of San Juan Basin Public Health, said the health department has been tracking the coronavirus outbreak since January, but officially went into emergency operations March 2 as it started spreading in the U.S.

SJBPH assembled organizations and people from many sectors in the community – schools, law enforcement, utilities, health care providers, local government, etc. – to disseminate information and coordinate response efforts.

“Our objective in the opening weeks was to provide situational awareness and create a communication pathway for local partners for information,” she said.

The first call was March 4, with more than 100 participants. As the pandemic spiked and posed unprecedented threats globally, calls were happening about three times a week.

“Things started happening really quickly across the country,” Jollon said. “Our working group would share sector-specific guidance and a lot of research.”

With the pandemic in its sixth week, the two counties served by SJBPH, Archuleta and La Plata, have each set up their own emergency operations centers.

Now, multi-agency calls are hosted by the EOCs to discuss topics like how law enforcement carries out public health orders or how local governments can still deliver services.

And SJBPH regularly hosts calls about the disease and how best to limit its spread.

Calls happen throughout the week, with the frequency based on need.

“Incident responses are adaptable to the magnitude of the event,” Jollon said. “So you grow an emergency response based on the size of the emergency. And the coronavirus outbreak is expected to be a long-duration event.”

jromeo@durangoherald.com