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Coronavirus and Influenza preparedness

Given the variety of knowledge and means offered by everyone above (a big and growing a la carte menu – and Chris, thanks for the multiple sources), business continuity planning can give us a framework for organizing it all by priority, preference, and circumstances. An understandable impression of emergency preparedness and business continuity planning is that we expend time and resources on severe but unlikely cases. Incomplete to start with, plans age badly, competing for exercise and updating with all other FM work for time, talent, and budget. In the December FM Consulting Council Newsletter, FMCC member James Delgado describes making use of the formalism of preparedness plans in lesser, more frequent cases. (Disaster, Catastrophe, Crisis – or Incident, The Value of Incident Management in Emergency Preparedness and Business Continuity attached.) James offers an example of a substantial, but by no means disastrous water main break with no internal flooding. Using the business continuity plan, even in a narrowed and reduced context, ensures complete handling of the incident through full recovery, while adding little expense, and counting as an exercise. Stephen Brown, in this month’s FMCC Newsletter, summarizes business continuity planning on a systematic basis in the feature article (PANDEMIC – The oft-neglected threat in Business Continuity, also attached.) Predictions have only worsened since Stephen wrote, several weeks ago. This is a good time to look at our FM organizations and other participating business units – especially operations and finance – to review what is business critical and how we mitigate, then escalate as needed.