Ten Key Insights and Related Messages Regarding the Need for a COVID-19 Spread Mitigation Program for Smart CEOs (or School Superintendents)[1] to Learn, and to Convey in a Proper and Special Way to their Teammates and to Their Boards, Soon, If Their Company (or School) is to Return to Work (or Classes), Safely
Healthcare insights are the engine that drive the creation of innovative strategies, ideas, and products in the healthcare field. America and the world need exactly such innovations now to dig themselves safely out of the lockdown hole they have dug for themselves. Here is the first set of ten key insights (more to follow) that I have used to inform my own and others’ very difficult, exceedingly intellectually challenging, and extremely stressful and scary decision-making, here.
The insights are:
1. No one EVER gets fired for doing too much to protect the business, out of an abundance of caution. Executives DO, though, get “Sacked” (and sometimes their careers destroyed) for doing too little, for hesitating, and/or for being non-decisive, or otherwise reckless.
Smart executives weigh things, contemplate and then decisively always do the right things to protect workers, customers, suppliers, and all their families, and the company’s own financial survival.
You may not get full credit for doing the right thing, but you will absolutely receive full blame if you do the wrong thing, (even if it is only wrong in hindsight). One only needs to look at the damage suffered by executives in the COVID-19-destroyed meatpacking industry.
Your career will especially be destroyed if:
(a) You and your company loses 3 or more lawsuits;
(b) A class-action lawsuit is filed against you and your company;
(c) Your company goes from non-union to union; and/or
(d) Your shareholders file a shareholder derivative lawsuit against you and your company.
All one or more civil allegations or criminal charges might find (or be settled on the basis that) you did too little to protect ALL of your constituencies and ALL of your constituents from serious harm or death.
Because of the emotional issues involved, you will especially be held accountable for harm or death to family members.
Finally, all of these actions are likely to allege or if they complete court action find that these arms or deaths were due to your neglectful, negligent, civilly reckless, or criminally reckless actions or lack thereof. What you cannot do is sit on your hands and watch the direction that the wind blows. Smart CEOs will be proactive enough to make a good faith effort to protect all of these people from COVID-19 death or other serious harm.
The CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, one of the top businessmen in the world, apparently had to learn this lesson the hard way.
First, Sixty Minutes very publicly attacked him for being too slow in protecting his workers and their families: As it turns out, a huge and very expensive mistake, that MIGHT cost him additional billions of dollars, on top of the billions of dollars he has spent on his Spread Mitigation Program.
Second, now, it is reported that the billions of dollars he has spent since that Sixty Minutes attack on Amazon and on him, personally (reported to have been $4B, just in 2020), has not saved him from: (a) serious unionization efforts, (b) major individual lawsuits, and (c) reportedly even the filing of at least one class-action lawsuit against Amazon, although apparently, none yet specifically on COVID, and presumptively, him, personally.
Third, his delay, alone (presumably he has crafted a good-enough Spread Mitigation Program), will likely cost him billions of dollars from unionization and lawsuit settlements over the next decade.
2. The new vaccines are NOT the panacea that politicians (and scientists who are political) say vaccines are. One need only look at the repeated US and worldwide failures in adequately managing the common flu for an example of this.
There are five COVID-19 Crisis near-certainties here:
(1) It is likely that only 40% of workers, customers, and suppliers (and all of their family members) or less will get vaccinated this year, 2021, and among those who do, it appears from reliable reports that a significant number of those vaccinations, for one reason or another, including poor transportation, poor training, and poor communications, as well as delays in storerooms or trucks without sustained needed low temperatures, will be defective or otherwise ineffective. Nevertheless, people should get vaccinated;
(2) It is likely that immunity from vaccination only lasts between three and eight months (or less with fast-developing mutants, such as the South African variant, which also adds more difficulties, still, because new drug therapies might be significantly less effective against this variant). Please, where I use likely, do understand that this is a context in which things are changing very quickly. These statements are based on what I know today and believe, based on more than fifty-years experience in the healthcare field, to be true or more likely than not to be true;
(3) It is likely that vaccinated-immune workers cannot only spread the disease after their immunity wears off, but also while they are still waiting for full vaccinated-immunity to develop;
(4) COVID-19 has already mutated to create a new strain that is 50% more contagious and spreading quickly across the US and globallyWhat’s worse, there are already 14 variants we know of, and more reasonably projected to come every month, perhaps over the next five years (Many years later, Zika and Ebola are still considered as emergencies and FDA has many Emergency Use Authorizations (EUA's) from the aforementioned emergencies still in effect; and
(5) What’s worse, it is likely that they will do these bad things while in an asymptomatic state, which makes them many more times dangerous to the workforce. Pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic false-negative workers are by far the most dangerous and create the most havoc and harm to workforces.
Viruses are not political, they are evil opportunists. In other words, they are not cooperative in any way and they obey only their own set of deceitful rules.
The point is: Vaccines are not a panacea. They are an essential component of a strong Spread Mitigation Program. I recommend that every worker and family member get vaccinated as soon as they can. But vaccinated workers (and other company constituents) still require other protections, such as a strong, comprehensive Spread Mitigation Program and still must remain very cautious for their own sake and for the sake of others.
3. The same goes for the immunity flowing from already having COVID-19. It is all but certain that, but I must still use the term likely, since it is still a “guesstimate” and not a soundly established fact:
(1) It is likely that only 40% of workers and customers and their family members (or less) will get the disease this year (and they likely will get it again next year, and the next year, etc.;
(2) It is likely that immunity from infection, too, only lasts between three and eight months;
(3) It is likely that infected-immune workers cannot only spread the disease after their immunity wears off, but also while they are still infected-immune or re-infected-immune, and, again, they are especially dangerous if they are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic;
(4) COVID-19 has already mutated to create a new strain that is 50% more contagious and spreading quickly across the US and worldwide; and
(5) What’s worse, again, it is likely these bad things will occur while in an asymptomatic state, which makes them many more times dangerous to the workforce and the company’s other constituents. Like the flu, this disease is likely to be a revolving door for at least the next five years.
Counter-intuitively, it is not disease-positive workers (or even false-positive workers) that CEOs should be losing sleep over. It is the number of pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic-false-negative workers (diseased workers who are wrongly believed not to be infected and therefore are let inside the facility-gate/store-door to mingle with co-workers and with suppliers and customers) per 100 true-negative workers that are at least 10x more dangerous.
They are especially dangerous to workers and to CEOs who are eager to do everything REASONABLE to mitigate COVID-19 within their company and all of their manufacturing and distribution facilities and retail stores.
Only spread mitigation strategies—i.e., outside the gate/door testing and random inside the gate/door testing—and other spread mitigation strategies, methods and products that will create one relatively disease-free sanctuary at-work, and later using the same tools, will create a second relatively disease-free sanctuary at-home, what my colleagues have labeled the “Norris Double-Sanctuary Strategy,” that will work.[2]
4. Again, using the flu as an example, it is likely that COVID-19 will mutate over-and-over again, several times per year, sometimes harmlessly and sometimes harmfully. It is also likely that some of the more harmful strains (particularly the new South African Variant) may not be stopped by current versions of the vaccines, and therefore, totally or partially ineffective, hit or miss, vaccines will likely be the evolving rule.
According to a CNN report of a few days ago, there are already 7 COVID-19 variants in the United States, right now. The one variant of most concern is the British variant B.1.1.7. (In just a few days, this report is already very much outdated. The new figure is already twice as many variants, and it is the South African variant that is the more dangerous).
Year-after-year we have to manufacture a new flu vaccine that is around just 45% or so effective because there usually are several active strains; the current influenza vaccine has been 45% effective overall against 2019-2020 seasonal influenza A and B viruses.
On its face, this is very alarming. Down deep, it is scary as hell. Workers (and their CEOs) who think they AND their loved ones are safe ten-minutes after the worker receives his or her second COVID-19 shot are sadly and dangerously misinformed. I have heard them say: “No more masks.” “No more social distancing.” “Rome, here I come.” False; false; false.
5. For an experienced and talented executive, it is far, far more than alarming. Both factually and specifically, the flu vaccine has been:
(a) Only 50% effective against influenza B/Victoria viruses;
(b) Only 37% effective against influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 virus; and
(c) Only administered to around 40% of Americans, for many reasons, including fear. Unbelievably, just 40% is all.
You can do the math. COVID-19 is far more contagious and deadly than the flu. COVID-19 vaccines and PPE alone cannot possibly eliminate the COVID-19 Crisis in less than five years.
It will take sanctuaries (best, double sanctuaries—ones both at-work and at-home) to first reduce and then defeat this enemy, while hoping that variations of COVID-19 or new bugs—ones that are far more powerful—do not come along.
Viruses are funny things (not really alive but very dangerous, none-the-less). Also, they are self-generating robots. The more they spread, the more variants they produce. Which means they spread all the more. Apparently, the only serious thing they do wrong is that they sometimes go too far, and kill their hosts, thereby eliminating someone who both might be re-infected and might be a continuing spreader of the contagious disease. Not a smart ploy, especially if the deaths are in the millions, worldwide, which sometimes they are.
6. Dr. Michael Osterholm, from the University of Minnesota, someone for whom other scientists hold in great regard, a few days ago predicted that the next major peak of the COVID- 19 Crisis likely will occur in 14 weeks (3.5 months) from now. I believe Dr. Osterholm has not taken into account, adequately, the likely weakening of workers’ immunity systems by the widespread simultaneous spread of the flu and by extensive pandemic fatigue.
My belief is that the next major peak of the COVID-19 Crisis will occur much sooner, perhaps as soon as eight weeks (2 months) from now, when coupled with the flu, which is my prediction, if both the flu sprouts, soon, and the number of companies and schools opening without adequate protection sprout, soon, too. Accordingly, I believe CEOs should soon be initiating their decision-making processes on the who (by whom), what, where, when, how, why (needed for justifying the CEO’s decision to do nothing or little—to Team members, board members, regulators, courts, and the like, pre- or post-, if the CEO’s actions turn out in hindsight to have been too-little, or too-late), and for what size budget (not too much and not too little) they are going to start to build their Spread Mitigation Program, or did start it, but late, or did not start it at all.
And this time, not only will COVID-19 likely be up to some 50% more contagious--since it will largely consist of one or both of the seriously dangerous new strains (which itself means that it likely will cause 50% more serious harm and deaths), it also might prove to be far more critically-harmful and deadly, still, when it is combined with simultaneous infection of a worker by the flu.
7. Again, there are already fourteen (14) known COVID-19 variants circulating in the United States according to CNN on Feb. 15, 2021. The United States is 41st in the world for performing forensic fingerprinting of viruses. This is an incredibly poor performance. Luckily, there are many other countries that are willing to share their data and findings with the US. The CDC is currently tracking three COVID-19 variants: British B.1.1.7, So. African B.1.351 and the Parent strain (P1). There are currently 7 known variants already in the US as of Feb. 10, 2021.
Viruses mutate often. Some variants are of no real consequence or concern, some are helpful, and some are harmful—and a very, very few of this last category occasionally are very to extremely dangerous, either in terms of contagiousness or in terms of strength or of both.
As mentioned earlier, at least one of the earliest reported seven new variants is 50% more contagious, which is 50% more dangerous to workers and to workforces—in and of itself.
CEOs who look only at what the worker-infection-rate in their facilities/stores or their neighbors’ facilities/stores is today have horribly dangerous blinders on. They should be looking at reasonable projections of their infection rate for six-weeks out.
They should also be looking at the six-week likely impact, of that reasonable projection, on the morale and mental health of their workers, on the safety of their company and on the sanctity of their brand. This is an especially critical assessment if, from the perspective of workers (and their family members), suppliers (and their families), customers, and investors, the CEO’s failure to act reasonably is reckless, or is at least that his or her actions have not yet begun to do the right things to protect each of them.
Like the Captain of a ship traversing a field of icebergs, the CEO must keep two things ever in mind: First, it is very hard to spot the presence, nearness, and size of the danger. Second, it takes 10x longer to change the direction of the ship than you think it ever could.
Many bad things can flow from a failure to act swiftly and properly. And, many bad things can flow from an appearance that the CEO is failing, or about to fail, to act timely and properly.[3]
8. Possible savings on insurance premiums and other insurance savings for implementing a robust, top-drawer COVID-19 Spread Mitigation Program like the S2P spread mitigation program.
No matter what your company’s health insurance and/or liability (tort, reckless behavior, and shareholder liability) insurance policies say, or what their website says, insurance companies might be (in some cases, are likely to be; and in the case of some insurers, still, they have already caved on this issue, and your Team can help you in filing for this special financial relief).
The bottom line, many US health, and liability insurers, are now willing, or are de facto forced or will soon be so, to cover part of the cost of a first-rate COVID-19 Spread Mitigation Program set up by you to protect your company.
You should ask your COVID-19 advisors to lead the way, with assistance from your CFO, your CHR, and your inside and outside attorneys and accountants with this cost-mitigation effort.
This, too, must be an “all-hands-on-deck” priority at the CXO level. The goal: setting the budget for the Program in the Goldilocks Zone—not too much and not too little, but just the right amount of spending—erring, if at all, in the direction of over-spending instead of under-spending by 10% or even 20%, just to be extra safe, both pre- and post-catastrophe.[3]
There are two key-ways in which your insurers can help to pay for your Mitigation Program: (1) By direct payment (in advance or in arrears) for all, most, or some of your out-of-pocket costs for setting up AND running the Program; and (2) By indirect payment of the same by reducing your premiums and/or co-pays for this cycle or the next cycle or the next series of cycles of premiums and co-pays.
If your company already self-insures for most of these two major financial risks related to failure to sufficiently follow the legal and/or business standard of care (what my teammates have labeled the “Norris standards of care”) in your state and/or in your industry, you will likely notice the base-line benefits here from a sound Program right away, and you can also seek the same kinds of relief from the umbrella reinsurer that almost every self-insured company has for insuring aggregate claims above a financially unsafe level.
9. Do not fall into the trap of harming or killing your workers and their family members or your customers and suppliers on the seriously false assumption that it will be the cheapest alternative available, right now. You would be wrong. Perhaps, seriously wrong. Even critically wrong. Wrong, not just ethically, morally, and socially, which is extraordinarily serious enough, but also financially.
The next and worst COVID-19 infection wave to date is peaking soon: somewhere between 10 weeks, when coupled with the flu, or as early as 8 weeks from now, which is my prediction, if both the flu sprouts, soon, and the number of companies and schools opening without adequate protection sprout, soon, too--which, although it is an equation containing two highly sensitive variables, I predict will indeed happen--and some 14 weeks from now (6 weeks later) which is Dr. Osterholm’s prediction.
It often takes 2 weeks to select and 4 weeks to set up and start operating a legitimate, first-rate Spread Mitigation Program, especially if you have many dispersed manufacturing plants, in-coming and out-going distribution centers, and retail stores.
Accordingly, I recommend that EVERY CEO get on top of this very important matter right now. Don’t wait for the new, worse peak to arrive before you start to take this matter seriously. This is not a place you want to be.
10. For example, you don’t want to be, in front of a court or before your board, like the CEO who put the smoke detectors and sprinklers in AFTER the big fire. If you are considered by a judge and/or a jury to have been reckless in your conduct, the consequences not only to your company but also to you personally, might be severe.
Sometimes, when the conduct of a CEO is found to be reckless, the court will “pierce the corporate veil” and hold CEOs personally responsible. In far fewer cases, but still a risk, a court might find the CEO’s conduct so egregious that the court disqualifies a CEO, or even a board member, from the benefits of the company’s Directors and Officers Liability (D&O) insurance. This is a place of risk and shame where no CEO ever wants to land.
Employee—from worker to manager to executive—retention may be affected by not providing enough spread mitigation protection for employees and the employees’ family members. Employees could become afraid to come to work, particularly if there is an outbreak at the CEO’s company headquarters, or at just that particular employee’s facility/store, or even just at one or more of the CEO’s other facilities/stores or affiliate companies. Plus, more anxious employees are more likely to file lawsuits.
On the other hand, both employee retention AND recruitment are enhanced if employees and the members of their families feel safe. The presence of a good Spread Mitigation Program creates “word of mouth,” and “common referral” amongst best, new employee talent selecting the CEO’s company as a preferred work environment. Plus, less anxious employees are less likely to file lawsuits.
On the overall scale of things, the cost per employee (and family-member) of testing is relatively cheap. (The settlement of just one lawsuit can easily cost in excess of $1M.)
Additionally, if a CEO establishes a strong, long-term relationship through his or her Spread Mitigation Program Manager to a top test-developer, things might become ever better. For example, based on strong relationships, not only will test-availability likely go up over time, but the price per test might also go down over months.
This is so, regardless of current excessive demand, at least for the moment, as CEOs and their Program Managers scamper to find a continuously reliable source of supply of top-quality tests, to fill their needs. This benefit to those who move quickly and smartly is likely to be especially great, as new fully at-home and fully at-work COVID-19 Antigen and Serology (Antibody) tests increasingly get EUA authorized by the FDA.
Conclusion
Because of these insights, plus other insights yet to come, I have advocated for decades, both in the US and around the world, for the creation of AI-driven, very low-cost, fully self-administered (at-work and at-home) infectious-disease spread mitigation tests—ones similar to very low-cost, self-administered pregnancy tests used by parents and similar to blood-glucose- level tests used by diabetics.
A company located in San Diego, Vessel Health, has just co-invented a very highly reliable and very fast version of such a full self-administered test. As a consequence, I have become a minority investor in the company.
But not for that reason, but instead for your better spread mitigation results, when you evaluate tests for inclusion in your COVID-19 Spread Mitigation Program’s mitigation-device bundle, such as or like the bundle offered by Safely2Prosperity (S2P), I recommend that you put the Vessel test at, or near, the top of your list for consideration and for detailed evaluation.
Final Thoughts ....
As a CEO, your primary duty is to serve mankind and at the same time create good-paying and otherwise rewarding jobs for your employees and for the communities in which they work—all the while generating sufficient revenue, and profits to stay in business, reward investors, and give bonuses and raises to workers, managers, and executives.
The corollary duty, the minimum duty of care imposed on you by law (the legal standard of care) and by the additional standards of your industry (the business standard of care), to that primary duty is for CEOs to protect from harm: their employees, their company and their brand, as well as their employees’ family members, suppliers (and their family members), customers, and investors.
To do all of this in a thoughtful way, whether or not you think about it in this realm, is to create and collect the right-data, convert that data into actionable-insights, convert those insights into thoughtful-ideas, convert those ideas into sound-judgments, and convert those judgments into timely, appropriate and likely-to-be-successful serious and seriously taken actions (i.e., both timely, or even early, and sufficiently, or even over, funded).
In the difficult game of being a great CEO, he or she who hesitates loses.
This is both a competitive world and a hazardous world. When you ask any PT Boat captain who served in WWII, along with JFK, and I have done this, the answer is crystal clear. When lives depend on immediate action, it is far, far better to be immediately moving in roughly the right, safe direction, and then adjust direction as you go. To wait until you have all the facts, which by the time that happens it means you have a shell exploding on your port side, CAN BE CATASTROPHIC.
There are a lot of unknowns and at best good “guesstimates” in the COVID-19 spread mitigation zone. This does not mean that you cannot manage, AND WILL NOT BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR MANAGING, spread mitigation well.
It means you must gather around you a team of experts or soon to be experts on infectious disease spread mitigation to help you to very soon, to very quickly, to very effectively, to very smartly, and to very cost-consciously (a large enough but not too large a budget) craft, create, set-up, and operate—and from time to time modify—the best Program for YOU and for your CONSTITUENTS.
A Call to Action -- Don’t Let Money, Fear, or Confusion Prevent Your Timely Start of Essential Action, Soon
You needn’t spend a dollar for a month. But if you believe the possible validity of the insights I have enumerated above, and you feel that the next, and more devastating, peak of COVID-19 spread MIGHT, again, be in as early as 8 weeks (56 days), as I hypothesize, when coupled with the flu, which is my prediction, if both the flu sprouts, soon, and the number of companies and schools opening without adequate protection sprout, soon, too, rather than 6 weeks later, as other experts hypothesize, there is little time to lose.
For example, under many circumstances, it likely will take you 2 days to select an infectious disease management company with whom to speak. Another 2 days to evaluate that firm, bring others, such as fellow executives and board members, into the decision-making process, build support for your decision, and sign a deal.
Then it will take 2 days each for the management company to quickly but accurately assess the specific needs of each of your facilities/stores, depending on their size. If you have 10 manufacturing, distribution, or retail-sales facilities/stores, that is 20 more days.
Then it will take 2 days to set up and begin to operate the Mitigation Program in each of those facilities. Again, assuming you have 10 manufacturing, distribution, or retail-sales facilities/stores, that is another 20 days.
Altogether, that is 44 days. If things heat up faster, the number of days to complete each task can be condensed. But you get the point. There is little room for delay. Action, soon, is needed. Great CEOs, by reading this risk-management article, now know this, well.
In other words, time is of the essence. Hesitation could be catastrophic. Companies that are in certain hot-spots know well now how bad things already are and how much worse—and how fast—things might become. For the sake of all of your many diverse constituencies and their constituents, please don't let the lull before the storm catch you by surprise and therefore unprepared and your company and its constituents unprotected.
Remember the destruction of the meatpacking industry, and the story of so many companies that only put in sufficient numbers and kinds of smoke detectors and sufficient numbers and kinds of sprinkler systems AFTER the big fire. Many of those CEOs lost their jobs. Some lost their careers. All were deeply troubled by their own failure to act ethically, morally, smartly, aggressively, and timely.
Just like when investing in the stock market, it is very difficult to precisely calculate the best time to spend, and the best amount to spend, and thereby to make and execute a winning investment strategy, here. By hedging in the direction of doing it too early rather than too late, and too large rather than too small, would be best for everyone involved.
This is what your family, your friends, your executive teammates, your employees and prospective employees, your board, your suppliers and prospective suppliers, your investors and prospective investors (from stockholders, large and small, to banks, to others), your customers and prospective customers, judges, juries, regulators, Sixty-Minutes commentators, and most Americans, would likely call: “Doing the right thing.”
Best, John
PS: If you do nothing else, at least immediately be Inward-Looking. In other words, you might want now to very seriously think about, and strategize on, how to:
At Least Protect Your Career and Your Sense of Self-Worth. Again, likely no CEO or School Superintendent has ever been fired, or their careers destroyed or ended, for spending too much, f0r doing too much, and/or for doing it too soon—in a precarious situation, in which aggressive action is reasonably likely to be needed to save lives and prevent other harm to the key constituents of a business or of a school system.
On the other hand, one need only look at the destruction of most of the meatpacking industry, through its “CEOs sitting-on-their-hands fiasco,“ where many of them certainly were at fault.
In hindsight, the ones at fault either did nothing, waited too long and/or were not bold, and lacked true leadership skills, or did too little, or did enough, but did it too late to prevent deaths and other serious harm to many—especially, those within their primary constituents-group (employees, particularly workers/teachers, and the members of their families; customers/parents/students; and suppliers of all kinds, as well as their investors/taxpayers.
A CEO or School Superintendent must either be really dumb, lack true leadership skills, and guts, and/or be reckless to fail to act reasonably (in terms of the three key parameters listed above)—just as soon as any “reasonable-average-executive” would have known to smartly act, and then smartly acted.
All in accordance with both Legal and Business Standards of Care. AND, for their own sense of self-worth—as well as the respect of their family members, teammates, and neighbors—as well as in accordance with their own ethical, moral, and social standards, and those of their teammates.
S2P can help here, too. Please keep in mind that, if nothing else, S2P delivers a better peace-of-mind to CEOs/Superintendents, Managers/Administrators, Workers/Faculty, and Customers/Parents/Students, as well as family members and other loved ones. If that is all you can muster the funding and political (small "p") support to do just yet, then do it.
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John.Norris@Safely2Prosperity.com; Cell: 617-680-3127; Web: Safely2Prosperity.com
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Here is a sample table of contents to what a good Action Plan Proposal for a Top-Line COVID-19 Spread Mitigation Program looks like.
Table of Contents for the Attachments to This Action-Plan Proposal That Substantiate Each of Our Analyses, Conclusions, or Recommendations
A. Already Covered – The Four Key Parts of the Proposal
The Proposal has already covered:
Part I — S2P’s Statement of the Problem and of the Action Plan to Aggressively Address it
Part II — The S2P Decision-Support Matrixes Upon Which S2P Relied in Formulating Its Recommendations
Part III – Brief Analyses of the Meat Packing Industry Workforce Collapse Fiasco
[CEO: The Page #1 Summary of Meat Packing Industry Analysis, only. The Full Excel Analysis was emailed to you separately because it contains many dozens of pages of detailed and deep analyses, and therefore, it is too long to include in the Main Part of the Action Plan.]
Part IV — The Net Evaluations of COVID-19 Mitigation Tests and of Other Key Mitigation Products, Such as Cloth Masks, Clear-Plastic Masks, Heat-Guns, and Strategic Sub-Plans, Such as the Double-Sanctuary Strategy (one sanctuary at-work; and the other sanctuary at-home) and the Two-Tests-Three-Days-Apart Strategy, Plus a third test on the 15th day and occasional random testing at the rate of two workers per facility per day per month, to help to spot early any outbreaks at-work.
[CEO: Introduction of the Test Comparison Analysis, only. Again, the Full Excel Analysis was emailed to you separately because it contains many dozens of pages of detailed and deep analyses, and therefore, it is too long to include in the Main Part of the Action Plan.]
B. To Be Covered Next – Three Substantiating Attachments and Two Substantiating Appendix Items
1. The Proposal next contains three Substantiating Attachments:
Attachments
Attachment #1 — The S2P Company Brief Description and S2P’s Corporate Partners' and Advisors' Descriptions
Attachment #2 — The S2P Executives’ One-Page Bios
Attachment #3— The S2P Chief Advisor’s One-Page Bio
2. The Proposal next contains two Substantiating Appendix-Items:
Maximum-100-Page Appendix
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Disclaimer
*To be clear, neither the FDA, the CDC, nor NIH have either reviewed this Article or in any way commented on it. I am sure there are alleged facts, guesstimates, and insights here that all or some of them might disagree with, in whole or in part. Plus, my tone is far more forthright, aggressive, and predictive than the FDA, the CDC, and NIH like to be, or in reality, can be.
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Footnotes
[1] Let’s not forget, while some of the issues are slightly different, and therefore parts of the solution will likely be slightly different, too, School Superintendents of large programs, and School Principals of smaller programs, are in effect the CEOs of their own facilities-- and the teachers are the workers, the students are the customers and the school-boards are the company boards. So, with a few adjustments, these same 10 insights, and more to come, might readily be applied to them, too.
Kids are already required to receive certain prescribed shots and maintain certain cleanliness and decorum, to attend school. Children are not automatically safe. They can catch the disease and suffer long-term consequences. Some 2,000 children have already been found to have done so. Also, they can be carriers, and thereby infect fellow students and teachers, and take the disease home and infect their siblings, parents, and grandparents, among others.
What has been wrong with the approaches to date, is that no one has thought to create two sanctuaries, one at school, and another at home, to make returns to school actually safe. Of course, there are many obstacles to requiring parents to do their spread mitigation job at-home to help mitigate spread at a very high degree of certainty, say as high as a realistic goal of 2% asymptomatic false-negatives (the 10x most dangerous infected students in terms of infecting other students and teachers) per 100 true negative students, in the student-population walking through the halls inside the school, a very manageable and realistically achievable number for a well-designed and well-run COVID-19 Spread Mitigation Program. Don't forget: kids are a lot more fragile than most people think. Consequences likely have some 70 years to show up.
[2] But for school-employers, this is a situation where some common-sense rules, imposed by governors and state legislatures, and supported by school boards, superintendents, principals and the teachers’ union—and partially funded by the federal government, state governments, and county governments and the schools’ health insurance carriers, each carrying a fair portion of the cost-load—could make all the difference in the long-term physical, mental and social health of the nation’s school-aged children.
[3] Many politicians wrongly say that our kids are not affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic. We do not yet know how devastating to the kids these long-term lockdowns will be, both to their intellectual development and to other key parameters of their growth into happy, satisfied, productive, and high-character Americans. Of almost equal concern, there are already some indicators of long-term medical damage to some infected-kids’ hearts, lungs, and the like. Only time will tell if this might prove to be a long-term problem. But we should take proper precautions NOW, just in case. The best precaution, as we re-open schools is to provide kids very disease-free sanctuaries both at-school and at-home, one heavily dependent on the other.
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© 2021, All rights reserved. This document is forward-thinking and contains only limited, summary information. It is intended to be used for informational and educational purposes, only. It is not a comprehensive description of facts, strategies, ideas, plans, laws, rules, or other important considerations. It does not constitute management, advisory, financial, legal, accounting, or consulting advice. Consult the FDA, the CDC, NIH, and COVID-19 Spread Mitigation Program experts, advisors, managers, lawyers, accountants, and consultants for advice on particular aspects, strategies, matters or cases.