Businesses Not Prepared For Global Pandemic

by Stewart Douglas

Story link: Businesses Not Prepared For Global Pandemic

A report released today on behalf of Marsh and The Albright Group has spoken of the wide ranging effects of a drawn-out flu pandemic, which would seen significant damage to business and the global economy.

The study adopts a bleak outlook, suggesting that a flu pandemic is both very likely and overdue in accordance with standard medical thinking, adding that any pandemic is likely to exceed the current expectations of city and government authorities.

Today’s reports comes off the back of fresh findings from the US government, which reflect similar predictions for a global outbreak, which could result in a loss of 40% of the global workforce through absenteeism and tens of millions of deaths around the world, if not many more.

The report highlighted that current public transport channels would be highly vulnerable to harbouring and transporting the condition, which would take its toll on one in five globally, resulting in an extreme death count when the dust finally settles.

More worryingly for businesses, it also found that most companies according to its research were significantly less than adequately prepared to handle any pandemic, which it says by scientific and social standards is currently long overdue.

Both the Marsh report and that published by the US government reflected a present air of complacency as to the potential business effects of any pandemic, findings that it suggests could end up costing business hundreds of billions of dollars on conservative estimates in the event of such a sizeable pandemic.

The report draws reference to the SARS outbreak, which rapidly spread from one isolated incident on a Chinese farm into a global threat that end up costing billions in lost business. Whilst it failed to reach the pandemic levels that many had forecast, the damage caused at such a low level indicates the extent of the damage that could be sustained upon realisation of a pandemic.