Standby messages - for imminent flu pandemic

Peter Sandman and Jody Lanard on messages on imminent flu pandemic:

(extracts) http://www.psandman.com/col/panflu4-1.htm

" Our main goal is to suggest, in considerable detail, the sorts of messages we think people will need to hear when a pandemic looks imminent – focusing especially on the ones that are counterintuitive, that government and corporate sources are likeliest to neglect. We have tried to explain the rationale for each message in terms of crisis communication theory.
We have looked at a lot of pre-pandemic messaging – messaging designed for use now, as opposed to when a pandemic looks imminent. Many international organizations, non-government organizations, national governments, state and local governments, and corporations are trying to tell their publics what might be coming someday. An organization just starting to work on pre-pandemic communications can borrow freely from this existing messaging. In the U.S., the Department of Health and Human Services brought in risk communication expert Vincent Covello to help recast its pre-pandemic messages into 74 pages of “message maps,” now posted on its website. Other sources of pre-pandemic information are using or adapting some of these messages.
Our own short list of pre-pandemic messages is contained in our December 2004 column, “Pandemic Influenza Risk Communication: The Teachable Moment.” More than two years later, it strikes us as too preoccupied with vaccines. (The flu vaccine shortfall of 2004 had provided that particular pre-pandemic teachable moment.) And it doesn’t empathically acknowledge and correct some misimpressions that have since become common. (Some version of “It’s not about the birds!” definitely needs to be a message.) But much of it still looks useful. Peter’s October 2005 column on “The Flu Pandemic Preparedness Snowball” has some additional suggestions for pre-pandemic messaging.
But we can find very few posted or published standby messages for use when a pandemic is about to start.
It’s possible that collections of standby messages have been developed and are being held until they’re needed. And some officials have told us they are working on pandemic messages, which they plan to publish soon. But when conference speakers present lists of their organizations’ pandemic preparedness activities, the lists rarely include “develop standby messages.”
In any case, standby messages are not readily available now. At the pandemic tabletop exercises we have attended, participants invariably develop their own messages on the spot. No one ever suggests using existing standby messages. If such message repositories exist, even in draft, it would be useful for their sources to post them (as HHS has done with its pre-pandemic messages), so others can comment on them and borrow from them.
We think this is a shocking gap. A novel influenza virus could launch a pandemic at any moment. The most worrisome animal flu virus right now, H5N1, has been around since 1997; it has been a focus of worldwide attention at least since late 2003. If H5N1 (or some other new flu virus) starts transmitting easily from human to human, a pandemic will be imminent. Nobody knows how quickly it will spread once that happens.
The moment that happens, pandemic risk communication will change radically. And as things stand right now, it looks like most pandemic risk communicators will be writing their messages nearly from scratch. "

"Imminent Pandemic Standby Messages

1. It looks like a flu pandemic is about to start.
   
2. It’s no longer about the birds.
   
3. This is a new warning, more urgent than any warning so far.
   
4. The experts still aren’t sure.
   
5. We don’t know how bad it will be.
   
6. Here’s what we know so far about the severity issue.
   It may be very bad. Society will survive, but it may be very bad.
   We may have a window of opportunity now to make some practical preparations. We must make the most of it – even though the effort may be wasted if a severe pandemic doesn’t happen.
   
7. What matters most is how households, neighborhoods, community groups, and businesses prepare.
   Individual and community preparations will focus on three tasks – reducing each person’s chance of getting sick, helping households with basic survival needs during a pandemic, and minimizing and coping with larger societal disruption.
   
8. Social distancing will be important but unpleasant.
   School closings present a particularly difficult social distancing dilemma.
   
9. Hand-washing is far from a panacea. But it’s easy, it’s under your control, and it has no significant downside.
   Like washing your hands, wearing a facemask may help a bit. But it has more downside than washing your hands.
   
10. Getting ready for a pandemic is largely about preparing for possible shortages.
    It’s probably too late to stockpile much now, but do what you can.
    
11. Now is also the time to think about how you will care for loved ones at home.
    
12. To get ourselves through the hard times that may be coming, we will need volunteers. How can you help?
    
13. If the pandemic is severe, the hardest job won’t be coping with the disease itself. It will be sustaining the flow of essential goods and services, and maintaining civil order.
    Here’s what the government will be doing....
    
14. Try not to switch off. Try not to overreact.
    
15. Even though we hope riots, panics, and other sorts of civil disorder will not be common, it is important to be on guard.
    
16. We are going into this pandemic crisis determined to be candid. That means you need to expect bad news, confusing changes in policy, conflicting opinions, and conflicting information.
    Listen to stories about what 1918 was like, and to guesses about what the coming pandemic may be like.
17. Here is some more information you may want to know.... Here is how you can get additional information... Here is how you can give us your feedback and suggestions....

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