UK Health Radio Medical - News Update on the Hour - Ebola - A Small Business Perspective - (An article written by a small business owner.)

UK Health Radio Medical  - News Update on the Hour

Ebola - A Small Business Perspective

(An article written by a small business owner.) 

As you travel through London you can feel the stirring of an anxiety that is beginning to creep in, to cloud the faces of the commuter or the mum taking a child to school. Contamination.  Could someone who is infected with Ebola and does not know it yet have touched that escalator rail?  How long is the incubation period?  Does that traveler on the tube look a bit unwell?  Could they have flown in from Africa, unaware that they were infected?

Air travel is a great liberator but a great liability too when we are faced with a potential pandemic such as the health threat we currently face from the Ebola virus. There have been a few cases in the news; a British aid worker treated in London for Ebola, a Spanish health worker and her family in quarantine.  An American man lying gravely ill in hospital after a trip to Sierra Leone. The threat of Ebola is now knocking on the door of Europe and in the USA where 1.73 million people fly from North America alone, every day. 

The prospect of more cases of Ebola is frightening, and with each new report of a case beyond African shores, it is creeping closer.  At the moment it is easy to continue with normal life, but if a pandemic was to sweep the world we would, as local businesses, need to put plans in place for a time when the fear and panic will affect our society, economy and daily life.

At what point will the public stop commuting, stop sending their children to school? Stop venturing out?   Experts say that currently the risk statistically is not very high, but for how much longer? 

Social Media

Social media, the barometer of our times, recorded 12 million tweets mentioning Ebola, on the 9^th of October alone.  The vast majority of the tweets posed questions around the lack of scientific knowledge of the Ebola virus.

It is easy to imagine that domestic contamination will cause alarm.  Even a single case of Ebola of a person living in a built up area like London, is likely to lead to wide spread panic.

Stockpiling

In preparation for potential panic, it is easy to imagine that there will be an increasing trend towards stockpiling items like bottled water, tinned food, long life milk, frozen foods, chlorine and hand sanitisers.

Mass panic buying is not a new phenomenon but in the grip of an Ebola pandemic will our supplies dry up all altogether as delivery drivers refuse to work? What will happen to our import dependent food supplies?

If Britain does shut down, how should we plan?  As local businesses, will we be the ones people turn to for basic supplies.  Will we be able to keep our public facing stores open? 

The number one priority for all of us will always be the safety of our families, staff, and customers.

If we decide to shut our businesses, will insurance companies or government provide the assistance we will need to ensure we survive with our fragile margins in a high cost industry?

Government guidance

Who can we turn to for advice to ensure that we can minimise risk?  It appears that the current planning from the government for a wider response to a national emergency in the face of a potential pandemic is still unclear. Specific advice from the government may, therefore, not be available until it is too late. 

Self Reliance

We need to be self reliant in seeking advice on when we should we act.  We need to formulate the best practice guidelines on how we can, as individual businesses monitor local situations and make the right decisions.

As small businesses we do not have the resources to know all the answers, but together, with the assistance of our trade organisations and retail groups we may be able to formulate clear and reliable guidelines on what we must do. 

This planning must be put into action now.

Emergency Planning

If we plan to continue to support our local communities with basic goods, the route to this may be distance sales and perhaps increased home deliveries.  To take this path we must ensure we speak to our payment providers to ensure we are ready to handle ‘cardholder not present’ transactions.  We also need to ensure tight ranges of necessity-based items.

The potential lack of fresh items may lead us to stocking more sealed long life products, items that can be washed with chlorine upon delivery to maintain trust.

Learning Lessons

Lessons can be learned from China and their handling of the SARS outbreak, or from how businesses are coping currently, in West Africa.

 

With the recent increases in infections of Ebola, there is increasing chance that we will be faced with these questions and more.  Now is the time for us to start preparing as a community on how we should act.  Working and planning together we can be ready.

Amanda Thomas

UK Health Radio Medical  - News Update on the Hour 

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