… deja ACHOO!!

Back in November 2009, at start of my blogging adventure, I wrote a post “… are we on the wrong track with Pandemic Planning?”

Disappointing to see we still seem to be on the wrong track.

Basically it talked about the very unsustainable ideas that were being promoted as good practice around Pandemic Planning. How we all should be sourcing new warehouses to store the vast quantities of masks that would actually be needed, and the risks around storing massive quantities of hand sanitizer.

Perhaps the real risk was that nobody was planning for Pandemic Influenza – as it turned out everybody was looking mainly at an epidemic of H5N1 influenza.

It never happened.

When we did have an outbreak it was H1N1, the Swine Flu, and of course the vaccines and various magic tablets we had stockpiled were not entirely useful.

The good news for many who make their living by being “pandemic experts” is that Bird Flu is once again on the rise. And this time it is a different strain, H7N9, so get out those plans that nobody used during the Swine Flu outbreak and update them.

But how about you ask yourself, and your pandemic expert, a couple of questions first;

• Do you have a list of the functions that you will shutdown first?
  • This is like a BIA, but in reverse. The least important things and you just shut them down totally to free resources for more valuable activities.
  • If not, why not? This is what we do, protect the most critical business functions.
• Do you have a trigger for the level of staff absence that you shut these functions down?
• Are all the Executives and managers aware of this and agree – we don’t want the BC folks ignored again, just like in the last pandemic.
  • If they are not consulted or don’t agree, stop wasting your time and the company’s resources.
• Have you established a watch desk to keep an eye on what is actually happening in the world of pandemic viruses?
  • If you have then you are probably more concerned about something else, rather than Bird Flu.

That something is call Novel coronavirus, or NCoV. There are many knowledgeable sources who consider this a much greater risk than the new strain of Chinese Bird Flu – but you are probably not seeing a lot of media coverage yet. Worth remembering that a real pandemic is a lag indicator – you will only hear about it officially when it has already started spreading.

If you know something about epidemics and pandemics – rather than simplistic plan responses – consider these facts;

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