Guest Blogger: Pandemic Planning & Readiness

Pandemic planning

As you’re reading this it’s anyone’s guess at what stage we’ll be in terms of the current swine flu issue. That is the nature of issue/crisis management.

First things first: Epidemic is defined as an outbreak of disease that occurs in more cases than you would normally expect. Pandemic is defined as an outbreak of disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high percentage of the population. Semantically it’s that simple.

The World Health Organization (WHO) moved to Phase 5 (of a six phase scale) on Wednesday. It’s likely that a pandemic is inevitable, but not necessarily imminent (it could dawdle for months, especially if it doesn’t like Northern Hemisphere summers) and not necessarily severe (mild pandemics are still pandemics, but noticeable only to professionals; it is too soon to even begin to guess how mild or severe this one might be).

According to the WHO, since the 18th century we have averaged 3 pandemics per century, every 10 – 50 years, so there’s no reason to think this won’t happen.

Public concern is growing, which is probably good, and public trust of authority has declined over the years, not the best of situations.

David Satcher, former U.S. Surgeon General said, “To the extent that the public panics, to the extent that the public demands antibiotics when they don’t need them, all of these things represent weaknesses in the public health infrastructure”.

Some people are appropriately worried; some are excessively worried; some are imagining that what’s quite possible soon is already here (e.g. “worried well” showing up in hospital emergency rooms with mild respiratory symptoms); many are unduly apathetic. Panic would be a VERY bad sign, but official fear of panic (“panic panic”) tends to lead to over-reassurance and suppression of alarming information – which tends to undermine trust and perhaps even lead to public panic.

Officials at every level need to be candid, to encourage dialogue, and to tell citizens the things they can do to prepare and ways they can help their community prepare. We want a public that can bear its fears, not a public that has been persuaded not to feel them.

If your family or organization doesn’t yet have a plan, today would be a good day to develop one. Your planning should be built keeping the following in mind:


Follow the hygiene recommendations and instructions of your local health officials -- wash your hands often with soap and warm water and cough into your sleeve. Prepare to stay home for awhile -- make sure you have enough food, water, medicine, and anything else that you might need if you couldn’t go out for awhile.

Government encourages ‘social distancing’ as the primary preventative course of action. Sick people need to stay home and others will want to, but critical work and functions will have to continue.

The uncertainty of a chaotic and unpredictable situation highlights the need to know what’s going on. Communication is and will remain critical.

The first goal of an effective communication strategy is to create a community or ‘social context’ for dealing with an unfolding situation. Make sure you know how to reach and communicate with your family and critical employees at all times. Make sure that you have a way of communicating with your sick employees.

Crisis planning and response should err on the side of overreacting and over-communicating. Don’t allow a vacuum of information to be filled with rumor.

Here’s a link to a good checklist for your business or agency.
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/business/businesschecklist.html

Stay well.

John Godec USA Board Member