BOSTON: As a former FDA COO and Harvard faculty member, and having served in the US military during the Vietnam War, I believe I must help prepare the US and our allied nations—and their critical enterprises— worldwide—to better survive the next pandemic, endemic, or local outbreak of a dangerous pathogen, whether it is nature-made or human-manufactured.
There is much confusion among the public and senior executives at government agencies and businesses, both for-profit and not-for-profit, about the continuing significant risks from infectious disease spread within their places of business and their employees’ homes.
Since the interest of the press and their viewers and readers was saturated by their over two-year almost daily coverage of the COVID-19 Pandemic, they have stopped covering the continuing significant risks of pathogens, including COVID-19, the flu, and RSV. These and other deadly diseases aren’t going anywhere. They are here to stay.
The tail end of the COVID-19 Pandemic still has a punch in terms of deaths and significant other harms, such as mental, psychological, and financial damage—and the overflowing of our hospitals and clinics. The pandemic did not end, as declared on May 11, 2023. Like many political declarations throughout history, that declaration was, at best, wishful thinking.
Plus, other significant yet less active infectious diseases, such as Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and Malaria, are still very active in the US, at least seasonally.
Of particular concern right now in terms of spread is what the CDC calls the “Triple-Demic.” This involves all three earlier-mentioned diseases: COVID-19, the Flu, and RSV. Catching one of them is of significant concern. Catching all three at the same time could readily be deadly.
To make matters worse, this continuing and growing exposure to all these infectious diseases and others is happening when many businesses have begun requiring their employees to return to their workspaces at least four days a week, and some employers are pushing them to do so five days a week. For these employees and their employers, the “hybrid work model” used in recent years is dead or all but dead.
Plus, those who refuse to comply or ignore the corporate rules on this critical issue are increasingly being fired or at least passed over for bonuses or promotions. And many businesses have installed attendance monitoring, which would have been considered an intolerable insult in the past. So, most employees are complying with the new rules.
Infectious disease spread is one of the greatest dangers facing Americans and all people living worldwide. But few Americans and their bosses realize this. We all tend to ignore it until a pandemic-sized attack kills millions of “Our” people. It’s called “tribalism”—a powerful force of nature inbred in us all.
And even then, we have heavily discounted the value of the deaths of nearly 1 million elderly Americans who were casualties in the war against COVID-19. You will see no monuments to them in Washington, DC, or town halls across the land. They have been long forgotten and are gone without a single trace. Not even their name lightly scratched on a tablet remains.
We forget that infectious diseases have killed hundreds of times more people throughout history than atomic or chemical weapons.
