Are Small Businesses Ready For Bird Flu?

Not all small businesses are ready or even preparing for bird flu. Which begs the question, why not? With the CDC believing there is a potential for 2 million Americans to die from the bird flu, why would people think like this?

(Star Ledger)Expert Plan, a 60-employee East Windsor company that does record keeping for company retirement plans, has no bird-flu plan.

"I'm highly skeptical of this being a serious thing to be concerned about right now," said Jim Scott, chief financial officer, "but I'm keeping an eye on the news."

Harvey Bass, chief executive of the 14-employee staffing company Stascom in Sparta, said he is "not taking it seriously. It would probably take something actually happening to get me involved -- some kind of government warning or actual cases being reported." He added it is probably a priority at "mega-companies with nothing else to do."

This is the type of thinking that leads to a pandemic. By the time these businesses "accept" this as fact, it will be too late. So what could be the logic for not taking this serious?

"People are numb; how many of these the-sky-is-falling things can you prepare for?" he said. "This is a national issue, and if the government is serious about it they should highlight it. I'm not hearing the government say 'Watch out, this is coming.'"

As I have found it easy to do in the past, I won't blame the government for this. The CDC has been warning about this for years. People just need to get their heads out of their asses and pay attention to more than just their little bubble.