News & Perspective

More than 4 years ago, CIDRAP recognized the vital role businesses would play in protecting their employees and keeping critical products and services available during a pandemic of potentially dire consequences.

(CIDRAP News) – Connecticut lawmakers are set to debate a law that would require most employers to offer paid sick leave, armed with the results of a new survey that suggests that San Francisco workers benefitted from a similar law.

(CIDRAP News) – A review of several after-action pandemic assessments released today shows that earlier investments in emergency preparedness were helpful, but serious gaps such as low flu vaccination rates in minority groups and continued erosion of public health infrastructure could undermine response to the next national health emergency.

(CIDRAP News) – A new study suggests that about half of essential workers, such as police and emergency medical personnel, might be unwilling to work during a serious pandemic. Meanwhile, another study indicates that it's common for employees in private industry to work while sick with flu-like symptoms.

Both studies were published on Sep 25 in an early online edition of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

The nature of our response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic has moved from urgent to watch-and-see. This is the ideal time to take stock of what happened during the last 14 months and to make decisions about how we prepare for and deal with what comes next. We know that pandemics are a fact of life; another will emerge at some point unknown.