Op-Ed: Let Common Sense Guide Flu Strategy

One of the most serious threats to domestic and international business travel is a pandemic. In the six years since the emergence of SARS—severe acute respiratory syndrome—the majority of the business travel management profession has taken elaborate steps to prepare for the kind of pandemic defined by massive quarantines and the vast immobilization of millions of people. Several near-alarms have prompted the industry to take a closer look at subsequent developments and to determine the safest course of action for their travelers—and for the other personnel, plus their families, who are directly or indirectly exposed to these individuals upon their return.

But the H1N1 swine influenza does not fall into this category. It never developed into the SARS-type of story, in which even those health workers who initially identified the disease were also its first victims. The fact that so much hype was lavished on this topic during the initial H1N1 outbreak in Mexico, only to be followed by stories on how this influenza wasn't particularly fatal even when compared with other influenza, sent a mixed message to the world's population.

Virtually every source of information on the subject candidly states that best way to contain or defeat the H1N1 infection is through tightened personal hygiene and a reliance on the common sense of individuals with symptoms to absent themselves from work, social functions and day-to-day activities that bring them into contact with others. To the average person, this casual level of treatment easily translates into "no serious cause for concern."

It is this interpretation and its application that is likely to add to the consequences of H1N1 pandemic. For the business traveler, it becomes a toss-up of whether those achy symptoms the day before the big meeting or the morning before the new client presentation are a common cold or something more insidious. The question to cancel or not to cancel is suddenly seen in the context of future earnings or the individual's positioning within a company that may still be open to the concept of downsizing. It is this context that inevitably defeats the best arguments of common sense.

Any corporate leader would rather have one person stay home than come in and create the kind of circumstance requiring another nine to stay home a week or so later. The apprehension over anything flu-related has reached a point where an individual conducting a meeting with a cold will raise eyebrows faster than sales.

In an October survey conducted by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, 91 percent of 105 respondents indicated they are not holding off on meetings until after the influenza season.

An equally high 94 percent responded "no" to the question, "Have your travelers asked not to travel in flu season this year?" While this is good news for a meetings and business travel industry looking to advance during a period of fragile recovery, it is critical that individuals with flu-like symptoms minimize any exposure to the traveling public, regardless of the context.

Business travel managers have plans and programs for every contingency. The commonsense aspect of dealing with an issue like the H1N1 influenza needs to be officially spelled out as corporate policy with regard to reduced exposure in the workplace and when traveling. The current situation may also warrant a negotiated provision in most contracts that allows for influenza-related cancellations, as common sense mandates this has to be good for everyone.

Recent discoveries that this disease is especially dangerous to pregnant women and individuals with a history of respiratory complications or a secondary infection like pneumonia, must be taken as a warning. Nor is the fact that those most likely to contract H1N1 are in a much younger age group—children, adolescents, college students and the youngest strata of the labor force—to be understated. H1N1 is a different kind of pandemic. Common sense mandates we treat it so.