Safe America Foundation to test social distancing as flu response
Effort coordinated with French government, American health authorities; employees of Fortune 100 firms to avoid each other at work, will be monitored by hidden cameras
The term “social distancing” it sounds like treatment meted out to a disgraced young maiden in an Anthony Trollope novel. It does, in fact, involve a bit of shunning, but it is all in the name of preventing the spread of infectious disease, most particularly pandemic influenza. Closing schools and businesses, and restricting access to open sites, are the two main approaches, and both mean to prevent the sort of human congestion that can lead to nasal congestion or worse. At the University of California at Irvine, plans responding to an infectious outbreak include a four to eight week social distancing program during which much of the campus would be closed except for critical research and a skeleton administrative staff. Health services, of course, would increase in strength.
The problem is that there is very little evidence that social distancing will actually be effective in the breach. The Safe America Foundation (SAF), an organization dedicated to such pro-safety endeavors as promoting seatbelts and bicycle helmets, has decided to try and provide some. Working with the French government, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Department of Health and Human Services, SAF has commissioned consulting giants Booz Allen Hamilton and PA Consulting to design a social distancing experiment to “help identify and evaluate techniques for businesses to cope with the potential of an influenza pandemic. Factors such as practicality, business disruption, costs, and technology implications will be considered.”
During the experiment, employees of participating Fortune 100 firms will be asked to stay a few feet away from each other during working hours while researchers watch them with hidden cameras. The program is part of the Prepared.Not Scared. initiative, a national endeavor inteded to raise pandemic threat awareness among American companies and help them plan their responses.
-read more in Bill Hendrick’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution report; Safe America Foundation Web site
