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H1N1 Flu Preparedness For Businesses - 8 Practical Tips For Business Survival

By Rachel Willson

H1N1 flu preparedness is becoming and extremely important part of any company’s business continuation plan. With some estimates ranging 35% to 40% absenteeism rates, companies must make plans to modify the way they work.

Businesses will be hit with a double whammy as far as their operations are impacted by the flu. Their employees make come down with it but far more will have children that contract the disease and will require adult home care. Single parents in particular could require extended time at home if their children are infected.

Smart businesses will do the following:

• Dust off the existing business continuity plan and see if it is appropriate for a flu pandemic.
• Identify those tasks that can be accomplished through telecommuting and insure that sufficient support is available to support it.
• Cross train critical positions.
• Examine existing personnel policies on sick days and personal time off to see if it is adequate for the situation. Make adjustments as required.
• Stockpile critical material. Suppliers will not be immune to this disease any more than you are. If their staff is hit hard deliveries of goods and services may be interrupted.
• If a business relies heavily on outsourcing, check with the vendors to insure they have a plan to accommodate the H1N1 pandemic. If you’re not satisfied with the plans, line up alternative vendors.
• Communicate the plan to your employees so they can make their own plans on how to handle the outbreak at the family level. Talk up general preventive measures and encourage employees to practice them.
• Stock up on sanitizing gel, spay and soaps and encourage their use at work particularly in common areas like copiers, lunch rooms, faxes and supply areas.

In a sense, planning for this flu outbreak is very similar to earthquake or hurricane preparedness. The time to plan is now. The time to encourage employees to plan is now. The vaccine will not be available until mid October and most of your staff will not be eligible to get it anyhow.

A well prepared business will have a distinctive competitive edge during this flu season.

Are your employees prepared? Can they answer these simple questions?

Did you know that a family of four has an 80 percent chance of having a member be infected with swine flu? Do you have a plan to provide for care if a kid can’t go to school? Did you know that vaccinations will be rationed due to a shortage of supply?

If not, the company may want to get the answers to these and other questions go to http://swineflu911.info.

Still don’t think this flu is serious? Watch this video on kids with flu.

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Washington Post Article this Morning Preparing for Swine Flu’s Return

But many experts suspect the second wave could be more severe than an average flu season, which hospitalizes an estimated 200,000 Americans and contributes to 36,000 deaths. Because the virus is new, most people are not immune to it.

Well, I guess since Obama is visiting Mexico to talk about Swine Flu among other things and they had to write something ominous and menacing to take advantage.

If you are sceptical about swine flu news stories that is understandable.

On the other hand it does not hurt to be prepared.

Saw this article in Los Angeles Times today;

Swine flu goes to camp. Will it go to school next?

Hundreds of children have been sent home from summer camps across Southern California in recent weeks with flu-like symptoms, and camp counselors and directors are taking precautions to prevent the spread of the H1N1, or swine flu, virus….

UC campuses are stockpiling supplies, from paper masks and hand sanitizer to food and water. Officials are going over worst-case scenarios ….

Ironically some summer camps choose to send the children suffering from mild flu symtoms home thus taking a concentrated infection group and spreading it out.

Swine flu has not had much of a serious impact yet,  other than imminent shortages of flu vaccine this fall.

The WHO raised the alert level from phase 5 to 6, meaning a global outbreak has begun.

Ordinary Flu kills about 300,000 to 500,000 people a year.

So far this flu has killed about 141 people.

Being prepared means not worrying about trying to distinguish if one threat is real and significant and requires action.

If you have already acted, you are already prepared for a threat whether it materializes or not.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the swine flu alert to level 5 out of 6.

Margaret Chan Director-General of the WHO stated;

This change to a higher phase of alert is a signal to governments, to ministries of health and other ministries, to the pharmaceutical industry and the business community that certain actions should now be undertaken with increased urgency, and at an accelerated pace,

Certain actions should be taken now by individuals to be prepared.

The possibility of a serious impact caused by the flu is growing each day and as more information comes to light.

Being food prepared means having a one month to a six month long term food storage, preferably freeze dried food.

Why freeze dried?

Freeze dried food reserves lasts 25 years.

Meals are ready to eat just by adding water.

While the possibility of severe impact from a swine flu outbreak is higher now and growing, it is still not certain nor even likely yet to become severe.

If your long term food storage plan includes bulk bags of staples for an immediate threat, like swine flu, and that threat does not materialize what happens to the bulk staples?

The bulk food will sit in storage for awhile then they are thrown out.

Then one day a disaster does materialize and you are not prepared.

There is still plenty of time to order online and have freeze dried food delivered to your house.

Order lead times are currently one week to 10 days. But the lead time has been getting longer each day this week.

Being prepared for a flu epidemic like the potential 2009 swine flu means having supplies at home for an extended period of time.

According to the US government pandemic flu website;

Store a two week supply of water and food. During a pandemic, if you cannot get to a store, or if stores are out of supplies, it will be important for you to have extra supplies on hand. This can be useful in other types of emergencies, such as power outages and disasters.

I recommend one month to 3 months worth of supplies. Based on previous epidemics there are several “waves” of infection outbreaks.  Your ability to be prepared to stay home for extended periods of time at different phases of the pandemic may be vital to you and your families’ survival.

You should be immediately prepared and have at least two weeks supply at home of food, medicine (prescription and non-prescription), and other essentials. Anything that would force you to leave your home to try to find. It will also be harder to find these items due to supply chain breakdowns during a long pandemic outbreak scenario.

Three very important points for food;

• Buy foods that are the same or similar to what you family can eat. Radical changes in diet can cause much more complications than you need in a crisis.
• Store shelves will empty within hours once it is clear that the crisis is severe,  real, and imminent,  to most of us.
• Try to get as “ready to eat” type foods as possible - you may be sick and not able to prepare foods

Fill any prescriptions you have for as long as possible. Purchase the regular medical supplies that you would consume over a 6 month period including cold and flu remedies as regular illness don’t go on holiday during a pandemic.

What foods to buy

As mentioned try not to stray far from foods your family is used to and that you know they will eat.

• Rice - most people like rice and preparation is easy as long as you have a stove. Bulk 40-50 lb bags are cheap so if you don’t need to use it the waste will not cost much
• Dry Cereals - try to stay with what your family normally eats, but healthier brands with less sugar are a better choice
• Canned meats and fish - Sardines are great and cheap if you like them.
• Canned Vegetables - Cooked is better for preparedness so they are ready to eat.
• Peanut butter - if there are no allergies.
• Water containers - I won’t spend money on bottled water, the water from you tap is good enough and you should have time to fill containers if a threat to the water supply comes into play.
• Protein and fruit bars - read the labels, make sure they are not empty calorie bars that provide no nutrition

As I mentioned above once the perceived risk level is high in the minds of a critical mass of people the store shelves will empty quickly, due to the nature of our just-in-time food supply chain. Then there will a period of time before shelves will be partially and then fully replenished.

If you want to avoid this I would suggest you shop now.

Panic could set in within a matter of hours if the situation worsens.

For proper longer term preparedness of one to six months, I recommend freeze dried food.

The main reasons are

• It lasts a long time so food will be there for a future crisis if this one, hopefully, does not materialize
• You don’t need to panic buy when a crisis hits to be prepared, you are ‘always prepared’ for 25 years
• Food reserves are ready to eat, only needing water to prepare

I just checked Nitro-Pak’s (emergency preparedness) website  and they say that as of today  “most orders will SHIP in approx. 1-3 business days. Food orders may take slightly longer.”

The 2009 Swine Flu outbreak has “pandemic potential” according to the WHO.

One striking characteristic so far observed is the fact that young adults have been susceptible;

A number of reports have suggested previously healthy young adults — people ranging from their mid 20s to mid 40s — are making up a higher than expected percentage of the cases. With regular flu, young children and the elderly are generally at highest risk.

Helen Branswell MEDICAL REPORTER  Healthzone.ca “Flu outbreak a ‘public health emergency,’ WHO warns“

The 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic also attacked young people in their twenties and thirties.  According to  Wikipedia entry on Swine Flu;

The puzzling fact is that the epidemic erupted almost simultaneously at distant locations, therefore it is likely that the virus was incubated in people with only mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. Other anomalous facts are that the disease attacked people in their twenties and thirties, thought to have strong immune systems, and most of the infections were lethal.

The NYC possible cases, where testing revealed they virus is likely Swine Flu, were also reported to be mild. Since information in 2009 travels a lot faster than 1918 it is possible that mild cases existed for some time in 1918 before the full onslaught hit - seemingly everywhere at once. Unfortunately due to our modern mobility in air travel, the virus is likely everywhere already and difficult to contain outbreaks even though we have information and technology to trace and identify even the mild cases very quickly.

The 1918 flu virus is a “swine flu” virus. Swine Flu virus’ circulating include H1N1, H3N1, and H3N2. The 2009 flu virus is also referred to as “swine flu” however there is a unique twist that was revealed in a CDC press conference yesterday.

Dr. Anne Schuchat, Director of CDCs National Center for Influenza and Respiratory Diseases, stated that;

we believe at this point that human-to-human spread is occurring.  That’s unusual. …. We know so far that the viruses contain genetic pieces from four different virus sources.  This is unusual.  The first is our North American swine influenza viruses.  North American avian influenza viruses, human influenza viruses and swine influenza viruses found in Asia and Europe.

I would feel better if she stopped adding the phrase “this is unusual” after each fact about the 2009 swine flu.

The fatality rate so far is significant but does not appear to be as high as the 1918 virus, if indeed it does evolve into a pandemic outbreak.

In terms of preparedness the only thing I would add to the steps in the previous post is to get a months worth of key items like toilet paper and anything that would cause you to go out of your residence if you didn’t want to for a week or two.

Samples tested for 8 of 9 children in NYC suffering Flu symptoms indicate likely to be Swine Flu.

Heightened concerns for global swine flu epidemic.