On August 10, 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Margaret Chan announced that the H1N1 influenza virus has moved into the post-pandemic period but added that localized outbreaks of various magnitudes are likely to continue.

Meanwhile, the India Ministry of Health & Family Welfare reported as many as 58 people died of influenza A (H1N1) in India in the week ended August 1.

Are we receiving mixed messages here?  Perhaps. But George Santayana’s quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” comes to mind, especially in the amorphousness of the pandemic planning world.

As we segue into the fall, who is remembering this time last year? Has this summer’s heat sweated our memories of last year’s scrambling to figure out just how we were going to cope with this potential dragon?  Do we recall our concerns about whether or not to tell our tenants and clients about steps we were taking to enhance our pandemic preparedness?  Deciding whether or not to put hand sanitizer in common areas? Contracting for additional cleaning resources? Identifying critical tasks and the employees who performed them? Whether or not to order masks for employees? How to discover when we would receive vaccine for our families and employees?

So is H1N1 still out there?  Lurking? Or not?  Frankly, it doesn’t matter.  We need to dust off last year’s discussions, debates, deliberations and move in some direction soon.  Not to “pandemi-cize” the issue, but here are some thoughts designed to reenergize efforts (with the intent of awareness without alarmism). Are we:

·      Identifying (or reassigning) our Pandemic Point Person in each department ? (i.e. have we identified members of our “pandemic planning team?”).

·      Reviewing what we did last time this year? Our discussions?  Our decisions?

·      Reviewing the number of hand wipes, cleansers, masks, etc. we ordered last year?  And assessing the number of how many of each were actually used?  (i.e. how many do we have left and why?).

·     Reviewing our “work at home” strategies (and any other HR policies) for those employees who are in positions that can accommodate this strategy? Are we reiterating these policies to our employees?

·     Developed our message release strategy to tenants? Employees? Vendors?  What are we going to tell them?  When? How?

·      Identified our “minimum staffing levels?” And developed methods to track employee, vendor and tenant absenteeism?

Likely, this year’s event will be less strenuous than last year’s.  But are we willing to take the chance by ignoring it?