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DEALING WITH SWINE FLU

The following information is presented ONLY as general guidelines and for general education. If you have a suspected outbreak of Swine Flu (H1N1), you are urged to contact your local health officials and not depend solely on the following information.

General Prevention

Initial reports from the CDC indicate that H1N1 passes from human to human through close contact with infected people. Infected swine can pass it to humans as well (i.e.: the disease has crossed the “species barrier”). You cannot contract H1N1 by eating cooked pork. A standard surgical mask is not effective protection against H1N1 as the virus is small enough to penetrate the weave.

  • Hand Sanitation. Wash hands thoroughly and often with hot water and strong soap. Scrub hands for at least 40 seconds with attention to finger tips. If available, use generous amounts of anti-bacterial (alcohol-based) soaps and lotions.
  • Avoid direct contact. This means temporarily suspend hand shaking and or kissing during greetings. Avoid handling certain items such as public telephones, computer keyboards, and money - all of which may harbor the virus in a viable form for a short time.
  • When coughing or sneezing, cover your mouth with your sleeve, not your hand. The virus dies faster on an inanimate object like cloth.
  • Cover you nose or mouth with a tissue if you sneeze or cough and dispose of the tissue right away – then sanitize your hands.
  • If available, cover your nose or mouth with a tissue when you sneeze or cough and dispose of the tissue right away – then sanitize your hands;
  • Avoid touching your eyes, mouth or nose, as these are passageways for the virus to enter your body.
  • Stay healthy and active. One of the best defenses is a strong immune system. Avoid substances that weaken your general state of health. Take vitamins in moderation. While it does provide some protection, the current “flu shot” is generally ineffective against this form of the virus.
  • Avoid unnecessary travel to infected areas.
  • If you are returning from a known infection site (like Mexico) consider working from home for 5 to 7 days (the incubation period of the influenza) before returning to work.
  • If you feel sick, see your doctor and warn the reception area personnel ahead of time that you have flu-like symptoms. Specific symptoms include a combination of the following:
    • fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headaches, chills and fatigue, and pneumonia-like symptoms. Some cases have included vomiting or diarrhea.
  • If your business runs a shuttle or car/van pool service, brief the riders on the precautions they can take while traveling together (for example, use of an M-95 class respirator/mask).
  • Consider suspending meeting and use remote conferencing techniques.
  • Consider closing public eating areas such as cafeterias.
  • If you think you have Swine Flu, consider keeping your family away from others and your children out of school.

If an outbreak occurs

  • Consider activating your tele-work plan. This will likely lead to a significant drop in productivity, especially in the beginning.
  • Consider the following policy issues and be ready to respond to questions that might arise
    • Allow workers to draw on unpaid sick days for some period if they haven’t any time left or they are too new to have accumulated sick/vacation/personal time off (PTO) days.
    • Consider setting up a pool of sick days to which workers can contribute. Then, if any participant in the program becomes sick, he or she can “draw” from the pool and not unnecessarily lose compensation/salary.
    • o If lay-offs become necessary, develop a policy ahead of time on which workers will be dismissed and in which order.
    • Decide how you will handle the media and clients if an outbreak is reported.
    • Discuss ways of meeting client obligations in light of all the above procedures.
    • Be prepared to work with a reduced work force, especially if schools and daycare facilities (both for children and adults) are closed and parents are forced to stay home with children and/or family members with Swine Flu.
  • Take precautions handling certain types of materials (including paper-based reports and delivered mail) to insure that they are handled in a safe and healthy manner. Encourage frequent hand washing.
  • Have a way of communicating with employees and other stakeholders such as notices posted on the company website, daily conference calls, and/or a “hot line” with a recorded messages. Use these systems often to keep everyone informed or closing, reduced work hours or other policy issues.
  • Have a procedure and “trigger point” that provides guidance on when to shut down primary office space.

Post Event

There is much to do and discuss in the aftermath of this event. Guidance on these issues will follow once this danger is over.

Please realize that most “flu’s” repeat in waves of six to eight weeks. It is unclear if this pattern will hold with this disease.

Assistance?

Call or email North River Solutions for more information, assistance or simply to ask any questions.

Additional Resources

The following web resources contain valuable information that might helpful in this dealing with this crisis.

http://www.pandemicflu.gov/index.html
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/
http://www.who.int/en/ 

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