
During a pandemic, as part of social distancing, sporting events might be for broadcast only. In-person attendance will be suspended.
When or if pandemic influenza develops, it will happen because some of the viruses that hopped from bird to human will have evolved to be efficient at hopping from human to human. In a pandemic, most people who are infected will be carrying virus they acquired not from birds, but from other people.
And when pandemic influenza passes, it will pass because that virus can no longer find new people to infect. Either we'll have a vaccine, or people will have developed a post-exposure immunity, or we'll have ways of avoiding exposure.
As of this writing, the prospects for a vaccine in quantity and in time to address the threat do appear to be dim. And because the survival rate among those already exposed is so low, it appears that the human immune system is no match for this virus.
Thus, our first two options aren't much to rely on. We have to think about that third option — avoiding exposure. Social distancing is part of that approach.
Social distancing minimizes
the kind of contact that
enables flu virus transmissionSocial distancing minimizes the kind of social contact that enables virus transmission. One example of a social distancing practice is limiting functions that require assembling many people into a single indoor space, such as all hands meetings and benefits fairs. Here are some examples of social distancing practices that you can adopt at work as an individual.
- Avoid handshakes
- Handshaking as a customary greeting enables virus transmission through skin-to-skin contact. Substitute something else — smile, wave, or bump elbows.
- Avoid the lunchroom rush
- Whether you eat lunch in the employee dining room or at a restaurant, avoid the rush, and the hour immediately following. Eat earlier or later, or eat with just a few people in a conference room or large office.
- Substitute telemeetings for face-to-face meetings
- Reducing the number or duration of face-to-face meetings reduces the opportunity for virus transmission. Shift as much of the agenda as possible to email or teleconference.
- Use larger conference rooms
- If you must meet face-to-face, use the largest available conference room. Larger rooms have better ventilation, and there's more room to spread out.
- Avoid using public pens
- Public pens are found at the retail counter, at the building or hotel guest registration, at the bank, in the benefits office, and many other places. Use your own pen. In conference rooms, don't use the public whiteboard markers. Carry your own.
- Avoid the commuter rush periods
- If you commute via public transportation, take advantage of your employer's flex time policy to shift your working hours. Avoid times when you'll be exposed to crowds.
Over the next months, you'll pick up lots more tips for social distancing. Send them to me and I'll spread them around. Top
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Is your organization fully prepared for pandemic flu? Do you have new products scheduled for release in the next eighteen months? Have you considered what a pandemic event might do to your plans? For some novel ideas for making your organization pandemic-resistant, check out my tips book 101 Tips for Preparing for Pandemic Flu.
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
Take Any Seat: I
- When you attend a meeting, how do you choose your seat? Whether you chair or not, where you sit helps
to determine your effectiveness and your stature during the meeting. Here are some tips for choosing
your seat strategically.
My Right Foot
- There's nothing like an injury or illness to teach you some life lessons. Here are some things I learned
recently when I temporarily lost some of my independence.
The Paradox of Confidence
- Most of us interpret a confident manner as evidence of competence, and a hesitant manner as evidence
of lesser ability. Recent research suggests that confidence and competence are inversely correlated.
If so, our assessments of credibility and competence are thrown into question.
Holding Back: I
- When members of teams or groups hold back their efforts toward achieving group goals, schedule and budget
problems can arise, along with frustration and destructive intra-group conflict. What causes this behavior?
Virtual Interviews: II
- The pandemic has made face-to-face job interviews less important. And so we must now also master virtual
interviews, and that requires understanding the effects of the attendance list, video presence, and
the technologies of staging, lighting, and makeup.
See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming May 14: Working with the Overconfident
- A cognitive bias known as the Overconfidence Effect causes us to overestimate the reliability of our judgments. Decisions we make based on those judgments are therefore suspect. But there are steps we can take to make our confidence levels more realistic, and thus make our decisions more reliable. Available here and by RSS on May 14.
And on May 21: Mismanaging Project Managers
- Most organizations hold project managers accountable for project performance. But they don't grant those project managers control of needed resources. Nor do they hold project sponsors or other senior managers accountable for the consequences of their actions when they interfere with project work. Here's a catalog of behaviors worth looking at. Available here and by RSS on May 21.
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