Flu, fog and flood – the role of critical communications in winter

2017 has started with a combination of severe weather issues and virus outbreaks that left the UK battling with “The three F’s”:

• Fog
• Flu
• Flooding.

As health chiefs warn people to stay indoors to avoid the ‘double flu’ and ‘toxic fog’ and thousands of families evacuating their homes due to extreme flooding, the UK reached crisis mode. Let’s look at how critical communications can help to reduce the impact of these events.

Another fatal flu virus hits the UK 
On January 19^th 13,000 people sought advice from their GP and 192 people were hospitalised with suspected ‘double flu’. Cases of the A H3 influenza strain soared – a potent type of virus that can be fatal for vulnerable people. The failure to implement an adequate flu vaccination programme has led to the highest increase in flu-related deaths for twelve years. An increase of 28,189 deaths in 2015 took annual figures past the 500,000 mark.
The tragic increase could be reduced by implementing a critical communications platform. This would enable hospitals and first response teams to communicate with on-call staff and deploy medical resources to treat patients and quarantine the virus. Users could also harness the platform’s geo-location data to assess the most affected areas to target medical advice and prioritise patients with the most critical needs.