Exercise Skåne. Seminar arranged by the authorities in Cooperation Area Hazardous Substances (SOFÄ), City of Malmö and Region Skåne, 6th December 2011

On 6 December 2011, the Cooperation Area on Hazardous Substances (SOFÄ) arranged a joint exercise with the City of Malmö and Region Skåne. The exercise, which was carried out in seminar form, simulated the threat of an anthrax release during a performance at the Malmö Opera. The participants represented different sections in the Malmö City administration, as well as the police, the county administrative board and Region Skåne's unit for disease control and its health department. The purpose of the seminar was to identify strengths and weaknesses at the local and regional levels with regard to bioterrorism threats, and then to make the results available for the crisis management work that various authorities are engaged in. Interesting discussions arose in connection with the seminar, where both the City of Malmö and Region Skåne as well as the other actors demonstrated that they have important capabilities for dealing with this type of event, not least in terms of information channels and in establishing solid crisis management. The seminar also revealed a number of weaknesses. Some of them were case-specific in character, such as the information channels to Denmark and the Malmö Opera, and decontaminating and clearing buildings from dangerous materials, others, such as the problems resulting from having to work in an information vacuum, or the importance of having shared situational awareness, were more general. In all, 16 weaknesses were identified during the seminar, where the actual reporting of the threat, the lack of coordinated national resources and media management were considered to be particularly problematic. The basic idea in planning the day was to hold a straightforward, low-budget exercise that would enable interaction between actors working operationally at local and regional levels, and national and expert authorities. This was the first time that such an exercise was held, and it resulted in numerous lessons for similar exercises in the future.