The reality of an influenza pandemic has now reached the American workplace. The Swine Flu H1N1 Influenza seems to have been overblown and is now ebbing. There were only two confirmed deaths. It appears that H1N1 is neither particularly contagious or deadly. In comparison, the H5N1 virus (the Avian Flu) is very deadly with an almost 50% mortality rate. Fortunately, the H5N1 virus is not contagious and is very difficult to spread.
Even though H1N1 did not turn into a pandemic, it is a good time to address your workplace plans for pandemics.
Employers need to to implement responses that protect their healthy employees, guard the privacy of sick employees, and comply with applicable national, state, and local law requirements. It is essential that employers do not permit overexcited media coverage to push them into taking actions that may be illegal or frightening to their employees.
The first step is to encourage healthy behavior by your employees:
- Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
- Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze.
- Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way.
- Stay home if you get sick. Limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.
In planning for a pandemic, you need to be careful if you decide to survey your employees about factors that may cause them to miss work in the event of a pandemic. You can trip over health privacy issues and ADA limitations. The EEOC made an ADA-Compliant Pre-Pandemic Employee Survey:
Directions: Answer “yes” to the whole question without specifying the reason or reasons that apply to you. Simply check “yes” or “no” at the bottom.In the event of a pandemic, would you be unable to come to work because of any of the following reasons:
Answer: YES __________ NO __________ |
It’s time to give some thought about what your workplace would to in the event there is a pandemic.
References:
- What You Can Do To Stay Healthy from the CDC
- Workplace Challenges of Swine Flu (.pdf) by Morgan Lewis
- EEOC Releases Technical Guidance on H1N1 Flu Virus and Compliance with ADA by Daniel Schwartz of the Connecticut Employment Law Blog
- ADA-Compliant Employer Preparedness For the H1N1 Flu Virus by the EEOC
- Fears of a deadly outbreak abate as swine flu virus gains foothold – Boston Globe
- Cumulative Number of Confirmed Human Cases of Avian Influenza A/(H5N1) Reported to WHO
The image is the H1N1 influenza virus, taken in the CDC Influenza Laboratory.
7th May the latest figures to come out of the WHO are quite disturbing. The number of new confirmed cases is 2099, up from 1516 reported on 6th May. This 583 jump is a 500% increase on previous days which were steady at about a 100 new cases a day.
Without wanting to sound alarming, one has to question how much of the ‘mildness’ we are seeing is in fact a result of getting every suspect case on the planet an antiviral treament in time. The number of deaths has dropped to almost zero, thank goodness, but the early patients in Mexico didn’t get antivirals. It was killing something like one in 35 cases (2.8%). This compares to 1918 at 2.75%.
Let’s all just keep an eye on at least the most conservative estimates (like the WHO) and get on with our business preparations in the meantime.
Nigel Thomas.
Bird Flu Manual Online.
2009 H1N1 Flu preparedness for businesses.