How does pandemic planning differ from traditional continuity planning?
Pandemic influenza demands an additional set of Continuity planning considerations. Unlike traditional Continuity planning, pandemic influenza may be widely dispersed geographically and will potentially arrive in waves that could last several months at a time. While a pandemic will not directly damage facilities, power lines, banks or computer networks, it will ultimately threaten all critical infrastructure by removing essential personnel from the workplace for weeks or months. This makes a pandemic a unique circumstance necessitating a strategy that extends well beyond the public health and medical considerations, to include the sustainment of critical infrastructure, private-sector activities, the movement of goods and services across the nation and the globe, and economic and security considerations. State agencies are encouraged to develop an annex to their existing Continuity plans that adequately address issues such as increased absenteeism, social distancing procedures, and imp
