Business Talk Magazine

CONTACT: 

• John Norris
• 617-680-3127
• John.Norris@Safely2Prosperity.com
• https://www.safely2prosperity.com

January 12, 2024 – (BOSTON) 

I am a former FDA COO and Harvard faculty member, and a decades-long infectious disease spread risk management expert. (It’s the rate, depth, and breadth of “spread” that counts.) At the FDA, I co-led its last major internal reform. At Harvard, I taught policy, law, and management, including risk management. 

I know many of you know these facts. Still, I want to reinforce your thinking on the opportunity to serve your enterprise and the nation in  controlling the spread of current—and possibly far more significant, future—deadly  infectious diseases. The opportunity is immense because the need is tremendous. 

To help you prepare for this service of “getting your house in order” and assisting  others to do the same, here is the updated death data on one of the 24 diseases I  have mentioned most often in my over 100 articles and posts. 

During my earlier discussions, I spoke not only of the great need for Infectious  Disease Safety Programs (like the well-known “fire safety programs” now 

ubiquitous worldwide) because of their absence but also because of their greater than-fire danger from their vastly larger pace and breadth of spread. 

I also spoke of Safely2Prosperity’s advanced digital platform. And how it will help  critical infrastructure-related government agencies and businesses execute their  crucial role in preparing, preventing, mitigating, and controlling infectious disease  

spread within their enterprises, throughout their county, within their state, and  across our nation—and then around the world. 

The disease I have spoken most often of is COVID-19, which, even though most  laypersons and CEOs don’t know it, is still a roaring threat here in America and  around the globe. But the concepts I explore also apply to some 24 other infectious  diseases prevalent in the US and to a great extent worldwide. 

In the US, there have been 1.2 Million deaths from this one disease. Perhaps  as many as 40% of these people were avoidably killed. This is 100k more  than I reported just a short time ago. These are still primarily elderly persons,  so even though they mostly are parents and grandparents, their deaths  attract little notice in the press. 

Can you imagine if aircraft crashes in a single year produced even 1/10 this  number of deaths? Or if 1/100th of the deaths involved children? Are we  prepared for this possibility? 

This is so even though the average American, including the average CEO,  believes the pandemic is long gone. They think there is no CDC-defined  Tripledemic (of COVID-19 + the Flu + RSV) right now, and, at the very least, the  likely next wave of the COVID-19 pathogen every fall for many years to come, just  like there is for the Flu, is a fantasy to them. 

But these are current realities. And these recurring events are likely just given  current circumstances. If circumstances change for the worse, which they could,  the number of deaths of Americans could readily increase to historic numbers  again. Is America prepared for this eventuality? 

As more evidence of the existing or recurring strength of the 2019 COVID  pandemic tail, mask mandates at some major hospital systems or hospitals have  again recently been placed into effect.

And the deaths keep growing and growing. The tail end of the first wave of  this recent pandemic is not over. Infectious disease spread is now the third  largest cause of death in the world. Plus, other forms of harm from infectious  disease spread, including mental, psychological, and financial, are almost  too large to count. 

Still, only some in government and business truly realize how extremely dangerous  infectious disease spread is to people, government agencies, businesses, the  economy, national security, and national defense. It can bring our families,  businesses, and nation to their knees. 

If the next wave kills children and spouses and closes 20% of our critical  infrastructure, which it might, the uninformed and deniers will at long last get it. 

But by then, it will be far more challenging to prepare for mitigating and  controlling—and quickly and profoundly act to reduce or otherwise mitigate and  control—the ever-bursting and rapidly increasing spread. 

Infectious diseases spread like wildfires. But they spread quicker and  broader because every infected person carries the pathogen from  vastly separated location to location, not just block to block—and  given modern travel capacities, possibly as far and as fast as the  farthest reaches of the globe in a single day. 

And a 90-minute super-sonic flight from NY to London, Paris, or Belin, which will  be available commercially in just a few years, will make the spread faster and  broader still. We must keep an eye out for that. 

Infectious disease spread disasters can devastate the interests of many  different groups “in one large swoop.” Enterprises, investors, insurers,  bankers, customers, suppliers, and consumers—and most importantly,  employees and their families—can all be destroyed. 

But harsh things can also happen to senior executives and employees’  bonuses and jobs. 

Our invention is by far the best in the world. Please help me to get the word out. If  broadly adopted, it will make a critical difference to us all.

If you want to learn more or help, please get in touch with me  at John.Norris@Safely2Prosperity.com. 

© 2024 Safely2Prosperity LLC and Dr. John Norris. All rights reserved.