Hat Tip Fla_Medic.
An interesting news blurb came out today, and blurb is all it is:
Panasonic Sends Workers’ Families Home on Flu Risk, Nikkei Says
By Fergus Maguire
Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) — Panasonic Corp. has instructed Japanese workers assigned to parts of Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and South America to send family members back to Japan because of the risk of outbreaks of new influenza strains, Nikkei English News said, without citing anyone.
The Osaka-based electronics maker has asked workers’ families to return home by the end of September, the report said, adding it was not known how many people were affected by the decision.
It is worth noting that Panasonic has not issued an emergency edict to send family members home to Japan, rather, this is phrased as a precautionary measure in anticipation of a possibility. Interestingly, the regions of recall are Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and South America. Exactly the same regions that may suffer social unrest from the economic situation.
That said, many, if not all, international companies have plans in place to bring home non-essential staff and their dependents when the world goes to Pandemic Phase 4. Phase 4 can be somewhat nebulous in definition, but in general it is regarded as chains of human-to-human transmission of a novel influenza pathogen in several non-contiguous regions of the world.
“Chains of transmission” are defined as something more than one person to one other person, as in: person A to person B, person B to persons C and D, persons C and D to persons E, F, G, H. Well, I’m sure you get the idea. A “chain” of transmission. And, although we have seen the possibility of H5N1 being passed from an index case to another family member, we have not seen anything even remotely resembling “chains of H2H [human-to-human] transmission”.
This action by Panasonic is rife for speculation; unfortunately, there is just not enough information in the news blurb to puzzle out anything beyond the fact that this is a precautionary measure in anticipation of a possibility.
All of this is worth noting, it’s also worth further monitoring to see if any other companies follow suit. On the purely speculative front: Panasonic has a presence in China. If something is going on in China, and many believe there is a significant likelihood there is, then Panasonic is in a position to know more than I do sitting at my computer in Charleston, SC.
