http://society.guardian.co.uk/health…954092,00.html
James Sturcke Wednesday November 22, 2006
The civil servant charged with coordinating Britain’s response to emergencies has told the public to be ready for a possible flu pandemic.
Bruce Mann, the head of the Cabinet Office’s civil contingencies secretariat, yesterday urged people to consider how their families would be likely to be affected by an outbreak, which scientists believe is likely to happen in the near future.
Mr Mann appealed for companies to come forward with information about the proportion of staff they believe would be absent during a pandemic. “People need to think about what they would do in the most likely circumstances,” he said, adding that there was a “remote possibility” power outages could be a consequence of worker shortages.
He said people should think how their ability to go to work would be affected by school closures or other restrictions likely to be introduced in the event of a pandemic.
Snip
.. Earlier, Mr Mann told a conference organised by Survive, a business continuity organisation, that he wanted to test whether what the Cabinet Office was doing “in our ivory tower in Whitehall” was filtering down to companies and the wider public.
He said the government was trying to improve two-way communication with businesses about emergency preparation, and advised delegates to familiarise themselves with the government’s UK Resilience and Preparing for Emergencies websites.
At last! Finally! Let us hope this is the start of a public communication campaign that makes people realise this is a serious threat ….
This is fantastic news!!!!!!!!!! It is the first time that it has been acknoledged in this country that the S may, very realistically, hit the fan!!!!!!!! Now, what they need to do is give people a clue as to what all of this means in simple term.
- Supply chains interrupted - Heavy absentism - No power
and all the rest that everyone in this forum knows about.
I think this is cause to celebrate!
Bruce Mann, the head of the Cabinet Office’s civil contingencies secretariat, yesterday urged people to consider how their families would be likely to be affected by an outbreak, which scientists believe is likely to happen in the near future.
Kudos to all accross the pond ESPECIALLY anon_22 for her non-stop work, explanations and on-going research!