{"id":10644,"date":"2024-02-03T10:54:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-03T05:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/?p=10644"},"modified":"2024-02-06T11:01:39","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T05:31:39","slug":"alert-world-health-organization-director-general-has-a-dire-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/press-release\/alert-world-health-organization-director-general-has-a-dire-warning\/","title":{"rendered":"Alert: World Health Organization Director General Has a Dire Warning\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>CONTACT:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>John Norris\u00a0<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>617-680-3127\u00a0<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>John.Norris@Safely2Prosperity.com\u00a0<\/strong><\/li><li>https:\/\/www.safely2prosperity.com<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>February 3, 2024 \u2013 (BOSTON)\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/John-Norris.png\" alt=\"John Norris\" class=\"wp-image-10645\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/John-Norris.png 150w, https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/John-Norris-75x75.png 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>I am a former FDA COO and Harvard faculty member, and a decades-long infectious disease spread risk management expert. (It\u2019s the rate, depth, and breadth of \u201cspread\u201d\u00a0that most counts.) At the FDA, I co-led its\u00a0last major internal reform. At Harvard, I\u00a0taught policy, law, and management, including risk management.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A few days ago, at the World Economic Forum in Davos,&nbsp; Switzerland, the top executive of the World Health Organization&nbsp; called for immediate preparation\u2014through the creation of nation state-level and enterprise-level \u201csystems of systems\u201d to promote,&nbsp; require, and begin to regulate \u201cpreparedness\u201d\u2014 for worldwide risk&nbsp; management of infectious \u201cDisease X\u201d spread. Disease X is the&nbsp; next far more significant outbreak than the COVID-19 Pandemic&nbsp; waiting just around the corner.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Government agencies and businesses (for-profit and not-for-profit)&nbsp; worldwide were caught off guard when COVID-19 struck full force in&nbsp; 2020. WHO demands proper preplanning for the hypothetical more&nbsp; dangerous <strong>Disease X<\/strong>\u2014a pathogen projected to be responsible for&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>creating a next-generation pandemic that is much larger than the&nbsp; COVID-19 Pandemic, perhaps one that kills as many as 50 million&nbsp; people (or more) worldwide, many of the avoidably, if we are not&nbsp; prepared, and directly wastes many 10s of trillions of dollars worldwide.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Most government agencies and businesses were totally or&nbsp; substantially unprepared in 2020 for a pandemic-sized attack by a&nbsp; dangerous pathogen\u2014one that was both very dangerous and&nbsp; harmful in terms of being deadly or seriously and sometimes&nbsp; permanently debilitating.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And one that was highly spreadable because, given our \u201cshrunken&nbsp; globe,\u201d a person can travel by jetliner to the world&#8217;s farthest reaches in&nbsp; 24 hours. Compare that to the spread of the deadly bubonic plague (the&nbsp; \u201cBlack Death\u201d) when it took years by camel or boat in the Middle Ages to&nbsp; kill an estimated half the population of the world.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Director-General of WHO announced his critical concern about&nbsp; the almost instantaneous worldwide spread of \u201cDisease X,\u201d a far&nbsp; more dangerous pathogen, whether nature-made or human manufactured, than COVID-19. He emphasized that, in his opinion, it&nbsp; is \u201cwhen, not if,\u201d the nation-states and enterprises of the world will&nbsp; be confronted with the spread of this far more dangerous pathogen.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He calls for both public and private oversight. For now, I prefer and&nbsp; recommend primarily private oversight. I take this position once again to&nbsp; prevent the destruction of innovation in this category and the slowing of&nbsp; the pace of innovation. Intuitively, in the late 80s, then FDA&nbsp; Commissioner Dr. Frank Young, with the strong support of his staff and&nbsp; FDA\u2019s career employees, created a decades-long path for developing&nbsp; most of the miracle healthcare IT \u201cdevices\u201d we rely so heavily on today.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without that insight and leadership by Dr. Young, this, at the time,&nbsp; fledgling industry would have been significantly stifled for decades, and,&nbsp; likely, many of these life-saving innovations we depend on today would&nbsp; not yet exist. This differs from saying that public agencies like the FDA&nbsp; don\u2019t need proper oversight roles. But the oversight should continue to&nbsp; be milder and far less financially expensive, both to the agency and to&nbsp; the device developer, than the oversight now applied to drugs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This is possible since embedded enterprise-based patient and staff&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>safety programs, such as those at the Massachusetts General&nbsp; Hospital, enterprise-oversight-based voluntary private organization&nbsp; programs, such as those at The Joint Commission, and dedicated&nbsp; robust digital tools, such as those invented and developed by&nbsp; Safely2Prosperity, now exist. Together, they provide a significant&nbsp; level of private oversight and highly functional and configurable&nbsp; support when providing oversight and preparation at the enterprise&nbsp; level<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Plus, appropriately, the FDA does not regulate health and healthcare&nbsp; \u201cdelivery systems,\u201d such as hospital-led or other groups, hospitals,&nbsp; clinics, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities, or their \u201capplication\u201d&nbsp; (use) of drugs or medical devices, including their healthcare IT or&nbsp; derivative products.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That role has been fully and appropriately allocated to <strong>The Joint&nbsp; Commission<\/strong>\u2014which provides oversight and mild, yet appropriate, direct&nbsp; private <em>de fact<\/em>o \u201cregulation\u201d to 22,000 healthcare organizations in the&nbsp; US\u2014and, by influence, many others worldwide.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>S2P\u2019s <strong>enterprise-level <\/strong>(and later, through adaptation, further innovation,&nbsp; and refinement, <strong>nation-state-level<\/strong>) system of systems digital platform&nbsp; (including machine learning and later AI-driven) oversight, when paired&nbsp; with sophisticated accounting and analysis of the continuously validated&nbsp; and authenticated preparation for and timely, efficient, and effective&nbsp; execution of needed, decisive preemptive or responsive actions to&nbsp; prevent, mitigate, and control the spread of such a dangerous (deadly&nbsp; plus highly spreadable) pathogen.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>It is \u201ctransformative.\u201d It is essential and innovative. It throws out&nbsp; much of the now threadbare, non-disease-free sanctuary (haven)&nbsp; rug woven for risk-managing pathogen spread during the 1918 Flu&nbsp; Pandemic\u2014the predominant approach still used for COVID-19&nbsp; Pandemic risk management. It takes the opposite approach used&nbsp; for COVID-19, closing businesses and schools, which did far more&nbsp; damage than good. It keeps the workspaces safe for employees\u2014 and the companies uninterrupted and productive.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This critical comprehensive prevention, mitigation, and control of spread&nbsp; is accomplished using advanced assessments of employee and family&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>protection needs and costs\u2014and by tracking appropriate administration&nbsp; of employer-selected \u201cbest-of-breed\u201d vaccinations, tests, therapeutics,&nbsp; and other health and healthcare services and products.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The system of systems at the enterprise-level risk manages the&nbsp; quality, cost, nature, and timing of interventions in conformance&nbsp; with rules set by employers in a highly configurable digital&nbsp; environment. Among other things, it uses sophisticated and precise&nbsp; 24\/7\/365 continuous oversight and assessments that automatically&nbsp; create advanced analyses, reports, alarms, alerts, and other&nbsp; essential actions to develop and maintain high levels of facility&nbsp; safety. So, by adding employer-determined rules for exposure tracking, lengths of isolation of sick and quarantine of exposed&nbsp; employees, and other risk-management-related measures, in&nbsp; combination with powerful electronic-computing tools, it gets the&nbsp; job done.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This enterprise-level system of systems will \u201csystemically revolutionize\u201d&nbsp; the risk management of infectious disease spread within enterprises,&nbsp; such as inside government and business facilities, to prevent, mitigate,&nbsp; and control the spread by and among employees and the employees\u2019&nbsp; spread to or from their homes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I mostly agree with WHO&#8217;s Director-General. My refinement:&nbsp; Supportive, largely private &#8220;regulation&#8221; of America&#8217;s many&nbsp; fragmented health and healthcare components using systems of&nbsp; systems is the intelligent thing to do.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is the best way to ensure each country&#8217;s <strong>Disease X pandemic&nbsp; preparedness <\/strong>at the nation-state and enterprise levels is sufficient to&nbsp; protect each of the discrete parts and all those they serve. Taking this&nbsp; approach will make a critical difference in America\u2019s and its enterprises&#8217;&nbsp; ability to not just survive but thrive during the next pandemic, whether&nbsp; nature-made or human-manufactured. There is always a next pandemic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>By these advanced means and ways, the health of employers,&nbsp; investors (taxpayer or funder), customers and suppliers, employees&nbsp; (and their jobs), and families are significantly protected.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My teammates and I have invented and developed a significant digital&nbsp; tool that provides part of the solution. It is the best in the world. But&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>everyone must now kick in. You can text me at 617-680-3127 to learn&nbsp; more\u2014and to explore how S2P\u2019s <strong>VirusVigilant <\/strong>digital platform can help&nbsp; protect your enterprise and its employees.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a9 2024 Safely2Prosperity LLC and Dr. John Norris. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CONTACT:\u00a0 John Norris\u00a0 617-680-3127\u00a0 John.Norris@Safely2Prosperity.com\u00a0 https:\/\/www.safely2prosperity.com February 3, 2024 \u2013 (BOSTON)\u00a0 I am a former FDA COO and Harvard faculty member, and a decades-long infectious disease spread risk management expert. (It\u2019s the rate, depth, and breadth of \u201cspread\u201d\u00a0that most counts.) At the FDA, I co-led its\u00a0last major internal reform. At Harvard, I\u00a0taught policy, law, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10648,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[48],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10649,"href":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10644\/revisions\/10649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10644"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstalkmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}