Topic 1 - Develop Safety Guidelines for Schools and Workplaces

In April, over 700 schools around America closed in response to disease outbreaks, and workplaces were put on high alert. The Department of Health must create a detailed guideline on when to warrant a widespread school closure, if students or staff should be sent home or to the doctor, and how to protect your school even if no cases are reported in your community. It must also inform how to respond to the scares and fears that are generated in these environments, but also on how best to educate and provide proper resources to areas that might not have proper sanitation infrastructure.

Topic 2 - Vaccine Usage 

The Department of Health must coordinate the CDC and state-level health departments in promoting vaccine usage for H1N1 through routine surveys to establish which areas and which populations need to be targeted. Questions such as whether a vaccine should even be developed, whether the expenditures would be worth the benefits, and how they would be able to coordinate the availability arose. Many people in the U.S., including lawmakers, questioned if the media was creating a panic or if anyone would take the vaccine at all; therefore, the department must decide its position on this and how it would develop campaigns addressing vaccine hesitancy.