HOW HARD TO BE A FRONT LINER?

By: Rommel K Manwong
LEAPS Academy Philippines


Front liners are people on the ground like nurses, doctors, public safety personnel and soldiers at various checkpoints, medical or health care workers, utility maintenance personnel, delivery-men and literally all those who are directly engaged in the front line to prevent the spread of COVID-19. They should be given due credit for their unwavering and tireless endeavors. Those who are manning the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine should also be equally recognized for their dedication in fighting the “invisible enemy”.

For me who merely observes while on home quarantine, it would be unrealistic on my part to generalize about how difficult to be a front liner. Nonetheless, by way of situational awareness analysis, there are certain aspects of consideration in order to point out the answer. The answer is reliant on some factors such as profile of front liners, the type of job functions they have, the location or venue of their engagements, environmental dynamics in the area, and the political complexities and influences, and so on.

Just recently, a friend of mine and a proud father of a lady doctor send me a message about her daughter’s sense of dedication and sacrifice for her job. He was very emotional and overly worried with his daughter upon knowing that she got a flu like symptom and the hospital where she was working went to temporary closure. Although she went on self-quarantine, and showing improvements of her condition, for the family, this is a very challenging time. In fact, he even mentioned that he was willing to be the victim in exchange for her daughter’s safety. From our conversation, he also expressly said that he and his family are very proud of all health workers and other front liners who are risking their lives by fighting for the lives of those who are enjoying the comfort and security of their homes especially for the poor and the powerless. To me, he disclosed a genuine and pure love of family. His words are just a manifestation of love of country and people.

The lady doctor’s story is one of the many stories of courage, dedication, and service to mankind. Every day from the news, we observe similar accounts of front liners trying to give back to the community, even if it means being endangered, and without publicity by media reports. These are the good things that make us people truly proud and we can’t help much but to honor them and give respect.

Our front liners are in an occupation that poses great danger and hazard considering the nature of the problem - pandemic. Where priority is granted in favor of those with symptoms of contagion, most of them are still to undergo COVID-19 testing. Again, they deserve the honor and praise for trying hard to save lives and save the nation from a downfall.

Obviously notable are sad realities experienced by our front liners. In various modes such as the dramatic threat to life considering the degree of exposure; the mental anguish, depression and anxiety of dealing with the sick and the dead; shortages of food and medical supplies due to slow delivery of assistance, and the lack cooperation and discipline by some of our citizenry.

Based on the situation dashboard, there is an increasing number of cases of persons under monitoring and under investigation since the declaration of an enhanced community quarantine. There is also a great number of losses of our front liners such as doctors who succumb to the corona virus. And there is slow motion of recoveries. Our health workers are diminishing one by one brought about by the protocol to undergo self-quarantine whenever exposure to the virus is detected. Our public safety personnel and soldiers in charge for our national security are getting exhausted. The public is getting bored and angry with the socioeconomic impact of the situation. The criminals and terrorists are taking advantage of the situation. And there are still some politicians who remain mum on the state of affairs.

So, how hard to be a front liner? The obvious answer is upon you. Help out by staying home and keep safe.

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What good things PANDEMIC has brought us?

By: Rommel K Manwong

LEAPS Academy Philippines

Fear and uncertainty are on top of any pandemic. Currently, there are not so many places in the world where the corona virus remains unknown. From the time it broke up, it spread like a disastrous fire and much effort to contain it is yet to be done. To this effect, people suddenly become religious and spiritual. But from here, there are more or less good things that it brought us besides hope and optimism.

P - PREPAREDNESS - People preparedness to the unwanted situation is being tested at the utmost point. When the government took the matter seriously by enhanced community quarantine and lock-down, it made people challenged to think about how to respond to the socio-economic impacts. It altered the mindset of people to innovate and create survival schemes. Positively, it brought us into a higher level of global health security concern, that requires global preparedness.

A - AWARENESS – People started to understand the differences and commonalities of an outbreak, an epidemic and a pandemic. Everyone became aware that things can get worst at indefinite time. COVID-19 is another eye opener for us to work out on the fundamentals of good planning and preparations.

N - NOTIFICATION AND SURVEILLANCE – countries and organizations are taught to prioritize technical solutions in the identification, diagnostics and speedy response even at short notice of an outbreak. Deep realization now comes that successful containment of pandemic relies on early recognition of human-to-human transmission, which requires a system for surveillance – the detection, collection, analysis, assessment and timely reporting of information pertaining to a pandemic. It further set that the early detection of a pandemic is crucial to a faster implementation measures to stop it.

D - DISINFECTION AND STERILIZATION – People learn to disinfect and sterilize. With the shortage of respirator masks as many people are considering wearing masks in public, people realized to go back to the basics of cleanliness. Positively, people are into the practice of enhanced personal hygiene.

E - ENHANCEMENT – After review of existing plans, policies, and programs, many organizations adopted to enhance their manuals involving global health security. Some companies realized the deficiency of plans against any outbreak, others just realized the need to create pandemic plans as part of their crisis management initiatives.

M - MITIGATION - Given the shortages of test kits in many countries, mitigation measures are being realized. Positively, many countries are taking extraordinary measures. The suspension of travels and efforts to reduce crowds are but some of these examples. The absence of specific vaccines and an exhausted health system everywhere made every country rely on community interventions. Although the challenge is to make the best use of available resources and tools to mitigate the spread of the deadly virus.

I - INVESTMENT – elevated awareness not only to disaster preparedness and response management but also resiliency and recovery programs has been observed. Investment to improve pandemic preparedness is ignited to a new level. As such, countries and organizations will take new steps for investing in pandemic research, training and capacity building and taking side on technology-enabled or automated response management. Boosting technological capabilities is now crucial in the fight against the "unseen enemy". 

C - COLLABORATION – as compared to other natural disasters, pandemics found to be difficult to contain geographically and that damages can be mitigated significantly through prompt intervention and collaboration. An imperative global health security, ethics advocacy and capacity building to deal with pandemic threats is prompted. Countries are reminded that any pandemic is a global problem that requires global solution.

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STRATEGIC SECURITY APPROACH AGAINST PANDEMIC

by: 
Rommel K Manwong
LEAPS Academy Philippines

Critical Situational Awareness

Any health emergency either in the form of outbreak, epidemic or pandemic, is never a joke to deal with. It invades us at every corner of the globe at a rapid pace of fear, chaos and uncertainty. The economy has hit and the stock market worldwide lost a huge amount of money. Commercial and business enterprises are too at stake. 

The epicenter country has been jammed immediately by the unwanted incident while other countries also agonized thereafter. The epicenter shift can even be much more devastating for those who are slow to react and the unprepared.

Such unprecedented storm has enormous impact to life and property. But such critical situation always bring forth new opportunities to the optimistic. There exists certain uncontrollable conditions out of the unwanted event, nevertheless our critical situational awareness and reactions towards them are all up to us for they are within our reach and capacities. There are strategic opportunities that can ensure business continuity while enduring the storm and preparing for more positive days ahead.

Having an accurate and up-to-date view of pandemic threats is crucial point in dealing with pandemic. The 4-A concepts of personal security and safety can be potently useful in dealing with pandemic situations:

• Assess - check out indicators. Notice everything in your surroundings and recognize or identify potentially hazardous situations or the threats.
• Analyze – scrutinize available information and analyze probabilities sorting them out by priorities. Keep note that not all information may be useful right away but are essential in future decisions. 
• Articulate – take note and put observations into writing. It is also important to communicate them effectively by being mindful of the words you use because every word count.
• Adapt – use information to act or change your behavior accordingly. Decide base on critical thinking about the situation.

Responding Pandemic Initiatives

The key remains in proper planning and preparation. It must state in the plan about the objectives of ensuring that all employees are safe, that panic is lessened, that risks of exposure are minimized, and disruption to operations are curtailed. These must be drawn up from data or information gathering; pandemic threat assessment, implementation of both proactive and reactive measures, plus the application of business continuity and recovery programs.


To handle any pandemic eventuality, a well-structured team of strategic planners must be available which should include an assessment team, implementation team, incident management team, business recovery team and resiliency management team. Each of the teams should be bonded by company policies, procedures and protocols with strategic measures based on key result areas.

Adopting Best Practices

Critical problems need critical solutions. Although some countries may experience a slower peak to the economic impact of the pandemic, some countries earlier hit are seen to have taken action with positive reactions to the economic rebound. Some of these activities may be considered as best practices:

Activation of Recovery Plans and Restructuring Resources – many companies understand that people are the most important resources in any organization. People have the knowledge and the experience to run the business. So, instead of laying off people, resilient companies chose to reallocate them to strategic and recovery planning.

Maximizing the Use of Social Media – promotional efforts can be placed off to social media channels. Each employee may be asked to promote products and services and become part of a company-wide promotion initiative to keep up sales and services reachable among clients and customers. In return, companies use these means for ranking and promotion.

Information Updates and Strategic Communications - a strong and top-down management focused on keeping employees informed on a regular and timely basis. This will prevent, minimize and contain confusion and contradictory information from media reports. A strategic communication team must be utilized.

Work from Home Set Up – the idea of setting up infrastructure to work remotely are given serious consideration in times of pandemic. Companies need to prepare support to their workers should they need to self-isolate. But to be effective, companies must study the following considerations:

• Guidance – provision of “what to do’s and what not to do’s” among employees must be available during a pandemic. These series of communications will give clear detail on how to access email, phone lines, and specific business applications should employees need to work from home at short notice. Workers are also instructed to take laptops with them each day to enable working from home at a moment’s notice. This level of guidance helps employees feel prepared and minimizes disruption if they need to change their normal working environment at any time.

• Equipment and environment - laptop or computers are important equipment for people to work from home. The working environment requires a safe and conducive one, internet connection, telephone headset, webcam or printer. Thus, a home office so to speak.

• Technology – business software as technology support must be available so that equipment will not be useless in a work from home concept.

Enhancing Digital Capability – the fear of contagion caused by face to face meetings and the cancellations of events, big or small, during pandemic changed the landscape and provided the need for digital capabilities. Virtual means become crucial to business continuity. A company that can run web- based events stands a real chance of retaining and expanding its audience, whereas those without experience in the digital events space will need to catch up quickly to stay in the race.

Increase Focus on Customer Convenience – an omnichannel strategy must be set up to keep customers and campaign for new clients. Online sale and services can be adopted considering impacts of home quarantine and “social distancing” schemes. Setting your business up with the right omnichannel presence can set the you apart from the pandemic and the ever-growing global competition.

Preparing for the Bounce-back – any pandemic will hit the economy hard - both locally and internationally - and it’s a perfect storm for which recovery efforts may take considerable time. We need to accept that recessions are an economic reality that are difficult to predict, but duration is usually short term. Its impacts can be a lot bigger and longer depending on how we are ready and disposed. Those who are prepared to rag away the short-term implications and quickly get back on their feet are resilient and will easily get up.

Learn the Lessons of the Past

Undoubtedly, the storm shall not stay forever. Even though how disastrous and messy, it will eventually pass. It will give us lessons to learn from. The uncertainty will convert into a collective creativity while the volatility it brought us will become an astonishing serenity.

Considering possibilities of new pandemic cases, it is always time to plan for the next coming storm by continuous improvement, research and learning from our mistakes of the past. Proper preparation is always key in deterring, detecting, denying, and delaying the threats posed by any pandemic. Thus, every organization needs a strategic strategy in place within the practices and applications influencing policies and procedures of business continuity.

References:

Business Continuity Initiatives

by Rommel Manwong 2020

Business Continuity: Weathering the Storm of Coronavirus

by JCurve Solutions 2020

Communication Best Practices for the Next Infectious Disease Outbreak, Epidemic, or Pandemic

by Michael Scott 2020