Business Continuity

I attended my local CT-InfraGard meeting last week where pandemic preparedness planning was discussed with both public and private sector participants. One of the findings from the discussion is that the WHO pandemic rating scheme doesn’t take into consideration the severity of the pandemic – only its geographic spread. Therefore, the WHO is considering revising its rating scheme to include severity levels. That is one of the reasons why the WHO has not raised the pandemic level from 5 to 6 – it hasn’t become severe enough to warrant a higher rating.

Our advice is that organizations should not wait for the WHO to finish this revision work. You should move ahead now to create a severity rating scheme and then map your pandemic preparedness actions into that new scheme.

One suggestion from Dr. Matthew Carter from the Connecticut Department of Health is to use the hurricane rating scheme – Category 1 through 5 – but using, for example, data points for medically treated, hospitalizations and/or deaths. For example, according to this approach, the Swine Flu event in 1918 would be a category 4 event. The Asian Flu event in 1956-57 is a category 3, and the Hong Kong flu event in 1966-67 is a category 2. The current Novel H1N1 flu would be a category 1 event – to date, there is not enough severity to rank any higher. A simple approach to use for each of your operating locations.

Don’t forget to confer with your own state’s department of health in developing your organization’s pandemic response plans. They are the front line in any type of public medical event.