Green Lantern
February 14th, 2007, 11:06:21 AM
Who is afraid?
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Exxon plans to keep some refinery workers living in the plants to keep them going. A small Southern grocery chain is thinking about drive-through pickup of soup and bread.
The U.S. Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration urged employers to develop plans to cope with a possible flu pandemic on Tuesday, suggesting letting employees work from home and encouraging sick workers to stay home without reprisals.
But a few international companies and small regional firms were already making bird flu planning a full-time job, and said on Tuesday they have had to prepare for the unthinkable.
Jay Schwartz, vice president of information systems at North Carolina-based Alex Lee Inc., is worried about what will happen when food supplies begin to get scarce as people become ill, stay home to care for children when schools close or tend to ill relatives.
"Security is a huge issue," Schwartz, whose company owns a chain of grocery stores and an institutional food supplier, told a conference in Orlando.
Big food trucks may be targeted by bandits. "Maybe we'll have someone riding shotgun for added security," Schwartz told the Business Preparedness for Pandemic Influenza summit, sponsored by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Experts almost universally agree that the world is ripe for a pandemic of some infectious disease. The H5N1 avian influenza virus is considered the leading candidate to cause one. Continued...
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=businessNews&storyid=2007-02-07T012416Z_01_N06268695_RTRUKOC_0_US-BIRDFLU-COMPANIES.xml
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Exxon plans to keep some refinery workers living in the plants to keep them going. A small Southern grocery chain is thinking about drive-through pickup of soup and bread.
The U.S. Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration urged employers to develop plans to cope with a possible flu pandemic on Tuesday, suggesting letting employees work from home and encouraging sick workers to stay home without reprisals.
But a few international companies and small regional firms were already making bird flu planning a full-time job, and said on Tuesday they have had to prepare for the unthinkable.
Jay Schwartz, vice president of information systems at North Carolina-based Alex Lee Inc., is worried about what will happen when food supplies begin to get scarce as people become ill, stay home to care for children when schools close or tend to ill relatives.
"Security is a huge issue," Schwartz, whose company owns a chain of grocery stores and an institutional food supplier, told a conference in Orlando.
Big food trucks may be targeted by bandits. "Maybe we'll have someone riding shotgun for added security," Schwartz told the Business Preparedness for Pandemic Influenza summit, sponsored by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Experts almost universally agree that the world is ripe for a pandemic of some infectious disease. The H5N1 avian influenza virus is considered the leading candidate to cause one. Continued...
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=businessNews&storyid=2007-02-07T012416Z_01_N06268695_RTRUKOC_0_US-BIRDFLU-COMPANIES.xml