Evacuating to safer shelter in the time of COVID-19

2 December 2020

In recent weeks, floods or typhoons have forced thousands of people from their homes in Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Philippines and Viet Nam, and Pacific island countries and areas have braced for the cyclone season, which has just started. In fact, the Western Pacific is one of the world’s most disaster-prone regions. Floods, cyclones and storms have increased in frequency and severity in recent decades, and internally displace some 8.7 million people in the Region every year.

Many displaced people take shelter in temporary structures such as tents or repurposed buildings such as places of worship, schools, sports stadiums and community halls.

The spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses additional challenges for keeping people safe and healthy in disaster evacuation shelters. To help improve emergency accommodation, the World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific has published interim guidance for shelter managers, local health services, ministries and departments of health, national military organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and others responsible for shelters.

The guidance applies throughout the preparedness, response and recovery phases of an emergency. It offers practical strategies that follow the key public health principles:

  • to facilitate physical distancing, including identifying and isolating people with suspected, probable or confirmed COVID-19;
  • to facilitate contact tracing;
  • to practise proper hand hygiene;
  • to use personal protective equipment (PPE);
  • to perform environmental cleaning; and
  • to control temperature and ventilation.

Dr Tamano Matsui, WHO’s Programme Area Manager for Health Emergency Information and Risk Assessment in the Western Pacific, said the guidance aims to keep people safe under the most trying circumstances: “WHO’s usual advice is for everyone to implement the range of measures we know are effective for preventing COVID-19. This includes avoiding situations where there’s an increased risk of the virus spreading. We call these the “three Cs”: confined and enclosed spaces with poor ventilation, crowded places with many people nearby, and close-contact settings where people have close-range conversations. We also know that keeping hands clean and covering coughs and sneezes are very important, as are staying away from others if you’re sick and having robust systems for testing, isolating, tracing and quarantining contacts.”

“Clearly, following this advice becomes much more challenging when people evacuate to emergency shelters,” she said. “The new guidance is based on what our experts in the Western Pacific Region know of real-life evacuation shelters in Asia Pacific and Oceania contexts. For example, it includes ideas on how to maintain physical distancing in the kinds of sleeping areas, showers and toilets we find in evacuation shelters in our Region.

“People fleeing natural hazards need to feel confident that they and their families will be safe if they evacuate. And decision-makers need to do all they can to avoid conditions that could lead to a double disaster,” Dr Matsui said.

The interim guidance expands on WHO’s global interim guidance on preparedness for cyclones, tropical storms, tornadoes, floods and earthquakes during the COVID-19 pandemic, which provides general advice on the public health aspects of disasters in the context of COVID-19. It complements publications from the Regional Office on community hand hygiene practices in low-resource situations, actions for consideration in the care and protection of vulnerable population groups, establishing nationwide contact tracing systems, selecting digital contact tracing and quarantine tools, and environmental cleaning and disinfection in non-health-care settings in the context of COVID-19.

The guidance aligns with For the Future: Towards the Healthiest and Safest Region, WHO’s vision of its work with Member States and partners in the Western Pacific, which sets out strategic priorities to ensure countries in the Region have strong and resilient health systems that are prepared to detect and respond to public health emergencies and health security threats – so that everyone is safe during outbreaks and disasters.

 

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