"Be Active" - when you're breathing hard and sweating - help your heart pump well, give you more energy and help you look and feel your best. Start with a warm-up that stretches your muscles. Include 20 minutes of aerobic activity, such as running, jogging, or dancing. Follow-up with activities that help make you stronger such as push-ups or lifting weights. Then cool-down

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Emergency Preparedness

Pandemic Flu

The North Central Health District is encouraging all 13 counties in the district to prepare for an influenza pandemic. Influenza pandemics have historically taken the world by surprise, giving communities little time to prepare for the abrupt increases in influenza cases and deaths that characterize these events and make them so disruptive. An example of the overwhelming effects of a pandemic event can be seen in the above picture which shows a makeshift hospital during the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic.

The present situation, with the spread of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, is markedly different because the world has been warned in advance. For more than a year, conditions favoring another pandemic have been unfolding in parts of Asia. This advance warning has brought an unprecedented opportunity to prepare for a pandemic and develop ways to mitigate its effects.

While neither the timing nor the severity of the next pandemic can be predicted, there is general agreement among scientists that the present level of risk is significant enough to require planning and preparation in all countries around the world.

Preparing Georgia for a pandemic involves more than just the Division of Public Health planning its epidemiological surveillance activities to identify and track when the pandemic reaches Georgia. And it is more than the hospitals in the state planning how they could take care of very large numbers of patients. And it is more than the Georgia Emergency Management Agency planning how it will move resources to help an affected community.

The effect of a pandemic will be very widespread. Every community will be affected. Even people who do not get sick will feel the effects of the pandemic because many activities will be cancelled and some businesses will close temporarily. Every county must plan to take care of its residents in the event of pandemic flu! The North Central Health District and the Georgia Division of Public Health are encouraging each county to form a County Pandemic Influenza Planning Committee. In addition, each entity in the community (agency, business, school, church, etc.) should plan for pandemic influenza.

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