The following is information from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
In today’s global world, systems are more interconnected than ever. It stands to reason then, if a pandemic strikes in one part of the world, the opportunities for it to spread are that much greater. Should COVID-19 escalate in Canada, here some of the things businesses need to plan for:
- Staff absences due to a number of reasons (personal illness, ill family members, looking after children if schools close, feeling of safety being at home etc.). In some cases employees may themselves elect to stay home; in other circumstances the government may authorize or require them to do so.
- Disruption to essential services like information, telecommunications, financial services, energy supply, and logistics;
- Disruption to supply of necessary materials or contractors;
- A major increase or decrease in demand for products and services;
- Cancellation or disruption of travel and cross-border movement of people and goods;
- Cancellation of public meetings or gatherings like sports events, concerts or religious services;
- Impact on the trade status of Canada, or of our trading partners; and
- Increased public fear that causes citizens to avoid public places, including front line retail and tourist–related attractions, restaurants and leisure businesses.
To help businesses prepare for and manage through a potential COVID-19 escalation in Canada, the Canadian Chamber has developed a brief guide source from a number of best practice documents and designed to assist business planning and continuity efforts. This tool includes links to the some of the most relevant and credible information, best practice tools and resources and can be found here Pandemic Preparedness Guide.
In addition to pandemic preparedness tools, the Canadian Chamber has also created templates for your use: a Crisis Communications Plan and a Business Continuity & Recovery Plan.
For updates, you may want to bookmark this page and visit it often:
http://www.chamber.ca/resources/pandemic-preparedness/
The Canadian Chamber also wants to hear from you on how prepared you are and what other support you might need, so please take a few minutes to compete a brief (4 min ) survey on business preparedness.
COVID-19 – Specific Information and updates for Manitoba
To help you to stay alert on what is happening in Manitoba, bookmark the following page for local updates on the COVID-19 virus.
https://www.gov.mb.ca/health/coronavirus/
And for employer-specific information, click here.
http://www.manitoba.ca/health/coronavirus/workplaces.html
