Pandemic Plan

Economic Impact of swine flu on Mexican tourism

As an example of the indirect impacts of a flu outbreak (which I've discussed before), Reuters reports:

Mexico could lose up to $4 billion (2.65 billion pounds) in tourism income after foreign visitors cancelled trips to popular beach resorts and colonial towns due to the flu scare, Tourism Minister Rodolfo Elizondo said on Monday.

Swine flu: Immediate Social/Economic Impacts

Pandemic plans must include not just the sickness-related direct impacts, but the other indirect impacts. (For background, see my earlier posts here and here.)

To illustrate, consider what steps are being taken by the Mexican government.

A year without trick-or-treating? (Revisited)

Note: This was first posted October 31, 2006. I'm repeating it (1) because it makes some interesting facts worth repeating and (2) to mark the occasion of having gone another year without a flu pandemic.

It's Halloween. As observed in the United States, for example, countless children are knocking on doors and ringing doorbells, asking for candy treats. Many are going to parties. So are many adults. Some retailers, theaters, and others are staging special sales and events.

Lots of crowds and clusters of people.

Lots of person-to-person contact.

Lots of touching the same doors, the same punch bowls.

Planning for uncertainties ... while ignoring a certainty.

As a business continuity issue...

Business continuity plans routinely address threats like fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, terrorism, chemical spills, explosions ... and even product recalls and labor unrest. Yet none of these threats may come to pass.

Meanwhile, a flu pandemic is a risk with a 100% certainty. It's not just a possibility. It's a "gonna happen." More than once.

So why don't more business continuity plans address the unique threat posed by an infectious disease outbreak?

For want of a nail.... Example #2

Here's another real-world example of how a little break in a supply line can have a big impact. (The pandemic-related concern about supply chains, of course, is that high absenteeism during a pandemic might cause companies to fall behind in their production, failing to deliver the parts or ingredients which customers need. In turn, this might cause ripple effects downstream.)

The July 20, 2007 Wall Street Journal published an article titled, "A Key Strategy of Japan's Car Makers Backfires," which begins:

For want of a piston ring costing $1.50, nearly 70% of Japan's auto production has been temporarily paralyzed this week. Blame it on kanban, the just-in-time philosophy of keeping as little inventory on hand as possible.

Some people get it, some people don't

The major trade magazine Computerworld reported this week that information technology managers vary in their awareness of the pandemic risk ... and, thus, they vary in their level of pandemic preparedness.

As you might expect, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is focused on keeping the agency's IT operations functioning during a pandemic. To that end, over the last 18 months, CIO James Seligman reports that...

...the agency has dramatically increased the capacity of IT systems to support employees working remotely. Remote access support has risen from several hundred simultaneous user sessions to several thousand as a result of an expansion in server capacity and the purchase of more Citrix software licenses.

(Citrix provides the well-known GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting, and
GoToWebinar remote computing services.)

Furthermore, the CDC has cross-trained IT workers. Plus it has installed showers and stockpiled cots, face masks and other supplies to make it possible for the IT staff to work long hours if necessary.

Boeing still needs 1,000 "nails"

I wrote on June 19th ("For want of a nail....") about a problem Boeing was having getting enough high-quality titanium bolts for its new 787 Dreamliner.

Granted, these aren't garden-variety bolts you'd pick up at the local hardware store. They're titanium fasteners, made-to-order.

But these aren't headphone jacks in the armrests. They're key parts; they hold the airplane together. You'd think they'd be on the critical list of "must have" components.

And this isn't a quickie, rush project. The 787 Dreamliner is Boeing's first all-new plane in 12 years. (And it's sort of important financially, already attracting more than $100 billion in orders.)

This is Boeing. The fasteners are being made by Alcoa Inc. These are veteran manufacturers working on a multi-year production job.

The plane was officially unveiled yesterday at the company's Everett, Washington plant. Reuters reports:

The plane is not scheduled to begin flight testing for at least another six weeks, and still needs its internal power and control systems fitted and functioning. It also needs about 1,000 temporary fastening bolts replaced by permanent ones, which Boeing said it will start work on immediately.

For want of a nail....

An article in today's Wall Street Journal - "Boeing's Nuts-and-Bolts Problem" - begins:

When Boeing Co. engineers first set about developing their new 787 Dreamliner, their biggest concern was whether they would be able to pull off making enormous sections of the wings and fuselage out of carbon-fiber plastic.

What they didn't count on was a shortage of nuts and bolts to hold it all together.

Major components, such as the new airplane's wings, are arriving from Japan, Italy, South Carolina, and elsewhere held together by temporary fasteners. That's because Boeing can't get enough high-quality titanium bolts from it's primary supplier, Alcoa Inc.

While customers are pushing Boeing to hurry production, Boeing officials say suppliers' ability to deliver parts will ultimately determine how quickly it can build airplanes.

Poultry growers need financial incentives to fight bird flu

From an April 13, 2007 Agence France Presse news report:

Sales of chicken in Kuwait have dropped by around 40 percent since an outbreak of bird flu was announced in February, the official KUNA news agency said on Friday.

In other words, some people are experiencing financial loss because of the presence of bird flu in birds in Kuwait. The loss probably is from a combination of (a) lower consumer demand due to worries about getting sick from chicken and (b) the culling of about 1.7 million birds because of the outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Kuwait.

This scenario has been repeated many, many times in a number of countries over the last 3-4 years. It is a matter of concern. The commercial growers and sellers are feeling a financial loss. So are many individual owners of small flocks.

"Business Preparedness for Pandemic" conference at Harvard

Here's further evidence that business leaders are realizing a pandemic is one of the top threats to their businesses - Harvard Business School is conducting a senior-level conference on pandemic planning May 14-16.

The agenda includes top experts - including people who are advising the White House and the Department of Homeland Security on pandemic response. Presenters will include faculty from Harvard Business School, Harvard Medical School, and the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. Also presenting will be executives from best-practice companies including Chevron, GE, OfficeMax, Sun Microsystems, UPS, the U.S. Marine Corps., and Visa.