WOW
Wow…that’s how I would describe the first day. The opening remarks by Dr. Osterholm really showed how big a deal this conference really is: There are almost 200 companies represented here, over 2 trillion in revenue and half of the participants are top planners (CEO’s, Presidents, VP, etc). Then Dr. Margaret Chan talked about the importance of planning and the critical aspects that the business community will plan during a pandemic, i.e. they make the things that we will need as a society to keep functioning.
After her remarks, Dr. Osterholm then proceeded to describe the “Fog of Pandemic Preparedness”. It was pretty clear why he referenced “Fog” in his presentation. The more business prepare the more they realize they are not prepared. Its kind of like traveling down a road, where the destination is known but the directions keep changing as the fog rolls in so you cant see what your driving past. I thought the most interesting part of the presentation was the point he made about the US only investing 10 million ($US) in vaccine production capacity internationally. His clear call for a larger investment resonated loudly as there were some senior government officials in the room, along with some of the best and brightest from the business world.
Dr. Peter Sandman followed Dr. Osterholm’s presentation with a wonderful clear take on risk communication. I guess that is to be expected though, as he is a risk communication expert. One the many interesting points that he made was that it is ok to scare people. He made this very clear later on in the day when he was on a panel. Evidently, children are really good at understanding “bad” things. When you think of lots of children’s books they typically have a scary/tragic part to them. The problem with scaring children is that your freak out their parents who are worried about you scaring/hurting their children. My big take home point was to remember who else is impacted by what your communication…educating children/impact on their parents or educating employees/impact on consumers.
Then Michael Evangelides presented the results of a survey Deloitte did on business preparedness for pandemic influenza…there was lots of information in his presentation some really good (more people are preparing) some not so good (6% of respondents believe their supply chain would survive a pandemic).
Then it was off to a fantastic lunch, where we heard John Barry describe the history of the 1918-19 pandemic. It was amazing to hear little details that did not make it into his book and his thoughts on things like the new CDC Community Mitigation guidance. We learned later (during a little private time with him) that it took seven years for him to write The Great Influenza and he would not have done it if he realized how much work it was going to be. I imagine lots of people are glad that he did…it’s the best record of what happened back then. Brings up that age old saying, “those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. I sure hope we keep learning and can figure out a way to prevent a repeat of 1918-19.
After lunch we had breakout seasons (there were 8 different ones). I ended up going to the one called “Designing and Conducting Effective Tabletop Exercises”. Dr. Kris Moore and Jill DeBoer (both from CIDRAP) presented and surprised me. I had heard how much work it was to do a “good” tabletop before but had no idea how much work was actually involved. I just hope I can find all my notes and remember this seasons in the future, when I am involved in tabletop exercises.
Just before dinner, we had the opportunity to meet the Honorable Madeleine Albright. This was a real treat, as it is very rarely you have the opportunity to hear such an figure speak candidly on topics ranging from why more people in public health should be in diplomatic service to her experience being Secretary of State and a mother. She then delivered a rather interesting speech drawling on her experience with disasters with thoughts toward the future, specifically on pandemic preparedness. She also thanked us for being there and working of the issue. The audience really appreciated that as most of the planning and work done for preparing for emergency and disasters is rarely used, and thus a “thank less job”.
Like I said, WOW what a day and tomorrow looks fantastic.