Heads up ... will this be a round two ... à la SCAM sars? 'Same song
Second verse Could be better But it's worse.'
"During a pandemic, workplaces can likely experience high absenteeism
-- probably as much as 40 percent of the workforce,"U.S. companies prepare for bird flu pandemic
Tue Feb 6, 2007 8:24 PM ETBy 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....
"During a pandemic, workplaces can likely experience high absenteeism
-- probably as much as 40 percent of the workforce," OSHA official
Amanda Edens told reporters.