Get Ahead of COVID-19

Like restless children on a car trip, we've reached the point of the pandemic when we're all asking "Are we there yet?"

We all want to reach the end of this pandemic and the restrictions that it has brought. We want to be able to go to the movies again, to walk through stores without masks and to gather with friends and families without worrying who will be the next one to become infected. Business owners and entrepreneurs are desperate to figure out when they can get back to normal, and what it's going to look like when they get there.

It has been a long road and there are only a few who can see the end of the trip. Most of us are like my 7-year-old, unsure where we are, with no concept of how long the trip will actually take, only knowing that we'll get there eventually. 

Scientists and researchers are in a much better place to tell us what the destination looks like. Like the drivers on our road trip, they know how to get there and what route(s) we should be taking.

None of us can see the delays that lie along the path ahead, and this leaves us all asking when we'll get there - and nobody knows the answer.

Once a vaccine is discovered - and keep in mind that this is not a certainty - there will still be another 4–6 months of restrictions in place.

That's little comfort to any of us. The only comfort is that while a few people know the destination, none of us know exactly how long it will take to get there.

While performing non-emergency ambulance work, I very quickly learned to put the question of "when" out of my mind when travelling to certain destinations. This was especially true when taking patients to hospitals in downtown Toronto. If we weren't out of downtown Toronto by 4:30, we might as well just park and take a break for a couple hours. We'd still get home at the same time whether we left at 4:30 or 6:30.

It was during this time that I learned to lean into the phrase: "We'll get there when we get there."

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As much as we would like to have a definitive end date, we are all living in this time of uncertainty for an indefinite amount of time. When it comes to the end of COVID-19, we'll get there when we get there.

This isn't much comfort to people whose livelihoods have been deeply impacted by COVID-19. Everyone wants to know when they'll go back to work, and businesses need to be able to make decisions about budgets, employment, and business outlooks.

In the midst of this uncertainty, what can entrepreneurs and business leaders do to help better prepare themselves and their employees for however long this journey to a vaccine takes?

The very first thing is to stop asking when we'll get there. Once a vaccine is discovered - and keep in mind that this is not a certainty - there will still be another 4–6 months of restrictions in place. The regulatory approval for a vaccine is an important first step, and one that isn't too far away, but it's not the destination.

After approval by health regulators, enough of the vaccine needs to be produced in order to vaccinate the majority of the world's population. Depending on how the vaccine works, whether it is single or multiple doses, how it is administered, how it needs to be packaged and transported, and many other things, then we will need to get it where it needs to be.

Once it has arrived, then we need to start administering it in a controlled manner, making sure to prioritize those who need it most. This means that as a relatively young person who is at low risk when compared with others, I will be waiting while high-risk people, health care workers, and other essential employees receive their immunizations. 

If the vaccine is a single dose, then we're well on our way. If it requires multiple doses to be effective, then we have to get another dose - and maybe a third - before we can start relaxing.

We've got a long road ahead of us, but you can start planning right now for what is to come. These three plans will put you ahead of the game when it comes to being prepared for the uncertainty of the coming months.

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The Three Plans You Should be Making Right Now

The "Everything is Going Back to Normal" Plan

This is the plan that we all want to pull out. Under this plan, we can assume that the vaccine gets approved and works exactly like we hope it will. Hooray!In this plan, you need to identify whether your employees are "essential" according to the government (hint: most of us aren't), and then determine what will be required in order to bring them back into work.

The "Well, We Didn't Expect That" Plan

This is the plan you are most likely to have to pull out in the next year or so. There are a number of things that could trigger the need for this plan (or some variation of it). We could find that the vaccine doesn't work as well, or for as long as we expected. We could find that there were some unexpected side effects that didn't get caught in testing and approval. The virus itself might mutate enough that the vaccine isn't effective. It might even be that you start down the "new normal" plan and have to revert to this one.

The "Oh, Fiddle Sticks" Plan

This is the one we don't want to pull out. This means that something has changed so much that we have to start all over again. There are a few things that could trigger this plan, but the most likely will be if the virus mutates so much that all of our work on the vaccine has to be thrown out and we start all over again. This is the place where you figure out how your business survives if widespread lockdowns become necessary again. 

While these three plans won't protect you from every contingency, these are the plans you need to be working on right now. Having these three plans, even just as an idea in your head, will help you be ahead of the curve as we start to move past the current point in time. 

Start thinking about the future now, and you'll be better prepared when we finally get there!

This was originally published over on my Medium Account