| MedPrep Consulting Group LLC Dr. Stuart B. Weiss | | IMPORTANT INFLUENZA UPDATE #9 WHO PANDEMIC ALERT LEVEL 5 | | DON'T BE SURPRISED WHEN YOU READ THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT HAS MOVE TO STAGE 4 OR 5 | | As most of you know, the WHO moved the world to Pandemic Alert level 5 last evening. The Unites States Government uses a slightly different scale to rate pandemic activity and based on the definitions, we should be at U.S. Stage 5 by now. That announcement has not happened yet so don't be surprised when it does. CURRENT SITUATION: - Mexico is in shutdown mode. The Mexican government has taken the significant step of ordering suspension of all non-essential Federal Government and private business activity. Mexican President Calderon has asked Mexicans to stay in their homes until May 5th. All schools are closed until May 6th
- In the U.S., 11 states now have at least one confirmed case of H1N1 swine flu. These states are: Texas, California, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Kansas, Arizona, Nevada, Indiana and Ohio with many more states reporting suspected cases.
- ABC News and CNN are reporting that an estimated 160,400 school children will be home today as various schools in 14 States are kept closed today
- Vaccine development is continuing and HHS predicts that the first test vaccine may be available in the Fall (vaccine development takes 3-6 months)
| | | ANALYSIS: This situation is highly fluid as details continue to emerge. All I can say this morning is WOW. In all the pandemic exercise scenarios I have written over the years for companies, I never imagined that the world would progress from Pandemic Alert Phase 3 to Phase 5 in just 5 days. This is a pretty intense roller coaster ride that we are on at the moment and its not possible to know what's next. Remember, although we are now at Phase 5, one step before a full blown Pandemic, we do not know many important pieces of information about this virus. We do not know whether this virus will just remain a minor illness as it has been for the vast majority of people in the U.S. or will it become more serious as it evolves. We do not know the rate of spread of this virus although we are starting to figure that out. We do not know if it will follow the seasonal pattern and quiet down over the summer only to reemerge in the fall. There are many unknowns yet there are some business relevant things that we do know. The virus is clearly spreading human to human as most cases now are not from people who have travelled to Mexico. We can see the drastic steps taken by public health in Mexico to slow the spread of the virus. They have essentially shut down the country affecting all government and private sector activities. Here in the U.S. schools across 14 states will be closed today. There are some studies out there that estimate that school closures will result in a 10% increase in your employee absenteeism rate as parents are forced to stay home to watch their kids. If this pattern continues, that will impact your business even without people getting sick themselves. With growing numbers of cases across the U.S. (as we discussed yesterday, this is expected), creating a safe workplace will be critically important for the physical and mental wellbeing of your employees. On our Daily Brief call today, we will discuss this. Take a moment and think about your workplace from an infection control standpoint. This virus, if it behaves like other influenza viruses, can be spread by touching contaminated surfaces. So, you want to encourage behaviors that limit the spread of the virus. Make boxes of tissues available for employees to use and put trash cans out so people can thrown the tissues away after use. Make waterless hand sanitizer available especially in areas where soap and water (the best preventative method) is not readily available. This includes on the way into the cafeteria. If people just washed their hands before eating, we would cut down on all sorts of illnesses. Start thinking about how you would institute social distancing (maintaining 6 feet of separation between people) in buildings where people must ride in elevators. These are some of the questions you should be acting upon now. ADVICE: Each day, I will focus on issues from a pandemic planning area that we have found during pandemic plan audits that we have performed for our clients. - Review your cleaning procedures. Take a look at the cleaning procedures used in your office. You may want to increase the frequency of cleaning of high touch, high traffic areas like bathrooms and break rooms. Take a look at the contact time for the cleaning solutions you use and make sure people understand how to properly use the cleaning solutions. As opposed to what you see on television, cleaning agents do not instantly kill germs. It takes time, usually from a minute to up to 20 minutes to kill germs, depending on the solution. The germs must remain in contact with the solution to be killed for a certain amount of time and this is called contact time. So if your cleaning folks use a solution with a 10 minute contact time and you see them wipe solution on a desk and then immediately wipe the desk dry, almost no germs have been killed. You can get this information off the bottle label or from the product website. Look for contact time or "kill time" for influenza viruses.
- Monitor bathrooms and break rooms for soap, towels and tissues. Make it easy for employees to follow good hand hygiene and sneeze/cough etiquette. Place these items around the office within easy reach. Put some signs up reminding people to cover their cough and wash their hands. It is generally recommended that you wash your hands for 20 seconds with soap and water to clean them. One way to do that is to sing Happy Birthday to yourself (quietly) twice as you wash your hands.
- Add extra cleaning to high touch areas. Since influenza viruses can survive on surfaces for hours to days depending on temperature, humidity and how porous the surface is, add extra cleaning to door handles, elevator buttons, intercoms and other high touch items.
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS YOU HAVE ASKED ME: - I received a number of questions about air travel. Right now there are no travel restrictions for air travel in the U.S. While there is CDC guidance for airline crews and flight deck folks at www.cdc.gov/swineflu/aircrew.htm, it doesn't speak to the risk to passengers. At this point, your individual risk during a flight is still quite low but there is no way to tell for sure. So at this point, clearly you should avoid traveling to areas with high outbreak levels and poor public health in other parts of the world. We will keep our eyes out for any government guidance on domestic travel. If you are traveling and feel uncomfortable, check with your airline about wearing an N-95 masks during the flight. I know I'm hedging a bit on this but there is no good science that I can find to back up a recommendation at this point.
Not preparing now would be a serious mistake should things worsen quickly.
If you have any questions or concerns that we can help you with, please feel free to reach out to me. My email is: sweiss@MedPrepGroup.com SUBSCRIBE TO ALERTS by clicking the button below. Dr. Stuart Weiss is a nationally recognized pandemic planning expert and CEO of MedPrep Consulting Group. MedPrep can assist you with your pandemic planning, training and exercising needs. Drop me a note if you want more information about us. |
Stuart Weiss, MD, CBCP
MedPrep Consulting Group LLC | | | | |
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