It’s strange how memories of events long since passed remain buried in our joint human psyche. It is seven centuries since Europe was ravished by the Black Death and over a century since the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918/9, when over 50 million people died worldwide and a quarter of the British population were affected. The death toll in Britain alone was 228,000. The mortality rate is estimated to have been between 10% and 20% of those who were infected. Although medical science’s understanding of viruses and disease has advanced in leaps and bounds, fear of a pandemic is as virulent as ever.
Are we to be reassured that the new strain of Coronavirus, now spreading around the globe, only has a mortality rate of around 2%? Most of those who have contracted the illness have comparatively mild symptoms and it seems, no more severe than ordinary influenza. Yet, its affects are turning out to be far greater than we could have bargained for. Ease of communication and the daily movement of millions of human beings around the globe, are creating new challenges for humankind. When you couple this with a more risk adverse approach to public health issues, the world is facing an unprecedented interruption in human activity and enterprise.
Stock markets throughout the world are taking a battering as economic activity is curtailed to prevent the spread of this new disease. This new pandemic threatens to close down the world in a way that we have not seen since the rise of the global economy. We have already seen major sporting events postponed, education put on hold and work-places and factories closed down for significant periods; and we are merely in the first phase of this global event.
As responsible employers, watching the spread of cases to places near us, how are we to react? All of us are likely to have staff members who have been in contact with someone who has recently returned from an affected area. Yes we can advise our staff to wash their hands thoroughly and regularly and to ring 111 to obtain up to date advice from health authorities. We can make sure that ample supplies of cleansers are available in our wash rooms. What more can we do at this stage?
It’s time to dust down our disaster recovery policies. These were drawn up in case we had floods or disastrous fires; but they ought to come in very handy if our staff are not allowed to come into work and have to isolate themselves in their own homes. In the legal sector we may be better off than some. Yes, we normally come in to our offices to see clients but even this might be done down the line on video links. But in reality, how much can our staff do from our own homes? Will it be possible for house sales and purchases to continue because it is not just our own disaster recovery plans which need to work but those of the lawyers on the other side of the transaction?
We renew these crisis plans frequently and they may finally be put into practice. Will they stand the test of the Coronavirus? My firm is working through our procedures to make sure they work as well as they can but the fact is that in many ways we are moving into uncharted territory.
No wonder share prices are tumbling. We could be in for testing times of the like that I have not witnessed in my time as a practising lawyer. Perhaps the nearest I can think of was the three day week of the 1970’s when fuel stocks were so low, that the lights could go on for only three out of five days a week.
We survived that and I am sure we will survive this period too!