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Business plays a key role in trust

And thus, a big role in this respiratory season.

bY DR.KATELYN JETELINA

(Reprinted with permission)

NOV 7, 2023

Trust in institutions is declining across the globe. However, one group, particularly in the U.S., has seen a significant increase in trust: businesses. (This is true across all generations except Gen Z.)

Most employees look to their employers for reliable information: those who say business should deliver more healthcare access and trustworthy information far outnumber those who say business is overstepping.

In other words, businesses are “trusted messengers” to communities.

And for a good reason: people trust who they know. Businesses showed up during the pandemic. They became a key source of information, many recognized the importance of mental health, and some have remained flexible and responsive to employee needs.

Partnering with businesses can make the traditional public health world uneasy. While some businesses do it out of the kindness of their hearts, there is obviously a clear business case for public health action (see more below).

That’s okay. A healthy community is a healthy economy and vice versa. Public health can partner by equipping trusted messengers, like businesses, with the tools, education, and evidence-based resources.

We should start with the current respiratory season.

The business case for public health action

McKinsey estimated that Covid-19 illness was responsible for losing 315 million to 1 billion employee workdays in 2022 alone. Coupled with flu and RSV, work absences because of childcare constraints were at all-time high last year. This impacts productivity, turnover, and burnout.

None of this is going away. Public health action can help. For example:

• Increasing vaccine coverage: Flu vaccines reduced work sick days by 1-3 days. In the UK, if 1000 employees are vaccinated for the flu, a business reduces absenteeism by 220 days and should expect a return of £1.03-£5.15 on every pound invested by an employer (depending on the severity of the flu that year).
• Upgrade ventilation systems: In a study of 4,000 employees in over 40 buildings, twice as much clean air reduced sick leave by 35%. By investing $40 per person per year to double the ventilation rate, employers can recoup $6,000-$7,000 per person per year in higher productivity.

So, where do businesses start?

Three key areas:

• Build conviction: Educate on the facts. Engage with champions. Approach information apolitically, base actions on science, and act on the same values over time.
• Increase convenience and eliminate cost: Nearly 1 in 2 employees state that initiatives targeting convenience and cost would significantly increase their likelihood of getting vaccinated. We see this play out in studies, like providing workers with paid time off to receive Covid-19 vaccines and to recover from potential vaccine adverse effects.

This could look like many things: pop-up vaccine clinics on campuses, paid time off to get vaccinated, ventilation upgrades, mask-friendly environments, a strategy for communication with the workforce, or even just a poster in the bathroom (like this photo someone sent me of an eerily familiar poster).

Need more ideas or support?

This Thursday, I am joining Dr. David Michaels (longest serving Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA), the Health Action Alliance, Ad Council, and CDC Foundation for a business solution-oriented discussion for this upcoming respiratory season.

It’s free and open to anyone! If you attend, you’ll also have access to a document we put together: Breathe Easy: 4 Steps to Respiratory Wellness at Work. (I’m biased, but I think it’s pretty great.)

SIGN UP FOR THE EVENT HERE

Bottom line

To strive for a healthier community, an all-hands-on-deck response is required. Businesses are key partners in public health, as they are trusted messengers for many communities. Energy is wisely spent equipping them with tools and information so employees can make evidence-based decisions and live healthier lives.

Love, YLE

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“Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE)” is written by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH Ph.D.—an epidemiologist, wife. During the day, she is a senior scientific consultant to several organizations, including the CDC. At night she writes this newsletter. Her main goal is to “translate” the ever-evolving public health world so that people will be well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. This newsletter is free, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support this effort, subscribe below:

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THE MAN WHO TURNED SCAMS INTO HAPPY ENDINGS–ARNOLD DIAZ

HE JUST WANTED TO HELP. HE DID!

WPCNR ON THE BEAT.  News & Comment By John F. Bailey. November 5, 2023:

The WCBS2 Shame on You started when I was just of college.

They had cinema verite’ reality,  before we knew that’s what we were seeing.

There was the dashing mustashed reporter with microphone with the CBS2Eye on the end,  knocki, knock knocking on the office door  of a corporate cheat or a boiler room scammer, with a video cameraman on his heels behind him, camera jiggling portraying tense, anything-can-happen action.

I would watch him ambush a business owner, or an executive who had done a person wrong, with this intrepid young man  with the black moustache (looking like Boston Blackie) all business knocking on the door like the police  would do in tv dramas a few years later.

“Channel 2 News,  we want to talk to…”

No response. The video camera behind  Diaz would come in closer, jiggling for drama. It was like nothing on TV that had ever been seen. A reporter getting into a story with passion, intensity. Relentless.

Mr. Diaz would knock louder, camera showing him up close knocking incessantly

“Sir, this is Arnold Diaz, of Channel 2 Shame on You can you  explain these undelivered products people are complaining to us.”

‘Go away you (BEEP BIPITY BEEP) We’re not talking.”

“We want you to explain these complaints. Otherwise we talk about it tonight on Shame on You Channel 2 News.”

On the segment if there was no explanation, or the target ducked ducked, ducked–Mr. Diaz would interview complaining victims, many of whom got their  money back or got their bureaucratic problem straightened out.

Inevitably the corporate baron or bungling goverment offical, would open the posh door or shabby hole in the wall some hiding their faces and Mr. Diaz,  gaining entry with video tape rolling  following the action, and viewers saw the cheater, conman, or fraud artist squirm or not answer questions. Other times Diaz would chase the target down the street.

I do not know the news director of CBS2 who had the courage to introduce the Diaz reports. Diaz came to The Big Apple, joining WCBS 2 in 1973.  His first job was at WPLG Miami and moved to CBS in 1973.

Arnold Diaz, this young intrepid  fearless reporter who knew not awaited him behind the door if it was opened, and a lot did….being spitted upon,  shoved and threatened with gun in a gold seller’s office, as The Times relates, as he told Richard Sandomir in Mr. Sandomir’s obituary of the intrepid Mr. Diaz.

His reports inspired many young people to become reporters  showed them why reporting was needed and more reporters – including me.

When I graduated college I got a job delivering papers for the Long Islander in Huntington NY, and the editor there, Gerald Lyons, gave me a chance to do reporting. Six months later I  started at WMAL ABC in Washington in an intern program, preparing news film, but left the program due to the realization that the traininf was going nowhere. Trainees were not regularly hired there so  I returned to New York, and wrote myself into a copywriting job at Prentice-Hall and stayed in advertising for 33 years.

But I remembered the excitement of news. Mr. Diaz reports that made a difference in people’s lives because of his dogged reporting and research.

I also remember my first editor, the white-haired Gerald Lyons in his rumpled wool sweater white shirt and loose tie saying to me when I informed I’d be going to Washington to the television news job, he congratulated me and, said, “Well, don’t go too far away from news writing.”

He knew me better than I knew myself. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to know thyself.

It is the people who stay with the story, follow up, don’t quit, and editors that don’t quit pushing the reporters for more, and of course great performers like Arnold Diaz, who always set things right and as Mr. Diaz said in Mr. Sandomir’s obituary, “I’ve been lucky to have had a dream job, standing up for the little guy, sticking it to the bad guys.”

I believe he started investigative consumer reporting.

But there was nobody better than Arnold Diaz

He won 48 Emmy Awards.

When I departed freelance copywriting, I noticed that the national media was not covering the protests at the World Trade Organization meeting in  Seattle, in 1999,  (the anniversary of which is coming up November 30).

The networks were ignoring the protests outside the arena it was held at in Seattle. But the internet was showing the protests forcing the networks to finally cover the violence.

I got to wondering why there was not more news coverage of White Plains in the chain paper that put out one edition for all cities in the county.

The newsman long buried  in my underused mind emerged and I started the White Plains CitizeNetReporter 23 years ago.

So thank you Arnold Diaz and Gerald Lyons for your inspiration. Mr. Diaz for his reports that made a difference every time he did them, and Mr. Lyons who told me to stay with news 55 years ago.

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JOHN BAILEY ON THE VOTER’S JOB AND THE POLITICIAN’S RESPONSIBILITY

CHRISTOPHER GOMEZ ON THE GALLERIA WHAT’S NEXT

THREE FOR THE 16TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT– SHOCKER OF THE WEEK

OVERFLOWING WHITE PLAINS EMERGENCY ROOM PROMPTS BUILDIING EXPANDED FACILITY

COVID CASES DOWN 7 OF LAST 8 WEEKS. ON TRACK FOR LOWER COVID DECEMBER

JOHN BAILEY REVIEW: HOW INCOMPETENCE , GREED, EGOS, CORRUPTION ,  HOSPITALS

BUREAUCRACIES  KILLED THOUSANDS AND STILL HAVE NOT STOPPED COVID.

PLUS JANET LANGSAM OF ARTSWESTCHESTER ON THE ARTS ROLE IN THE COUNTY ECONOMY 

EARLY VOTING SURGE

AND HONORING COUNTY LEGISLATOR BEN BOYKIN

JOHN BAILEY AT LARGE

23 YEARS REPORTING THE NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW

THIS WEEK EVERY WEEK ON WPTV THE WHITE PLAINS TELEVISION STATION

EVERY WEEK ON WHITE PLAINS WEEK

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WPCNR WESTCHESTER COVID SURVEILLANCE. Data from NY State Health Department. Observation and Analysis By John f. Bailey. November 2, 2023:

Westchester County has reduced the rate of covid spread  41% compared to last October.

Westchester new covid positives October 2 to October 29 were 2,687,  (1,876 FEWER CASES) compared to  4,563 in October 2022.

This is a significant lowering of the disease spread from last October that set the stage for a rise in infections in November that produca reduction last rate of the disease spread which built in the month of November and generated 10,091 new covid cases in the county last December.

Last week October 22 to 28, Westchester reported 474 persons testing covid positive, 68 per day. Sunday the County recorded 39.

The County averaged 7.5 persons positive per 100,000 people, (Westchester has 1,004,000 population or 10.04 segments of 100,000) which computes to 75 new cases a day, and 527 for a week which works out to 2,108 over 4 weeks.  The month October 2023 the figure is 2,687 indicating more persons were testing positive early this month when the average cases in Westchester  averaged 10 new cases per day. This indicates to me that less people are getting sick the last two weeks than the first two weeks of October. That is a good trend.

The figures bear that out.

Oct 1 to 7: 887 positives

Oct 8-14: 697   positives

Oct 15-21: 629 positives

Oct 22-28: 474 positives

White Plains Hospital Medical Center last week reported 77 hospital beds occupied as of Oct.31 and of those 77, 32 were found positive for covid, or 41%, which is down from 57% positives  a week ago.

The hospital according to Health Department data reported 87% of beds occupied, two weeks ago October 15.

The lowering positives figure (after admission) continues going down.

The 41% positive found in persons admitted to beds not for covid but found positive once admitted is the lowest percentage in a month..

From October 2 through October 31, White Plains Hospital Medical Center reported 319 admissions to hospital beds, and of those 200 tested positive with covid, a percentage of 63%.  From October 24 through October 31, the hospital had  a lower rate of “after admission covid positives:

Oct 20: 21 Admitted to beds, 10  found positive after admission

Oct 23: 21 Admitted to beds, 10  found positive after admission

Oct 24:  14 Admitted to beds,  4  found positive after admission

Oct 25:  12  Admitted to beds , 5  found positive after admission

Oct 26   14  Admitted to beds    4  found positive after admission

Oct 27    11 Admitted to beds    5 found positive after admission

Oct 30     12 Admitted to beds   7 found positive after admission

Oct 31     14 Admitted to beds   7 found positive after admission

Total         119  Admitted to beds   52  found positive after admission  (43% )

In November last year Westchester reported 6,676 covid infections, compared to 4,563 covid cases in October. Because Westchester has lowered infections in October 2023  to 2,687  and with more persons scheduled to vaccinate with boosters at this time the November December social spread may by cut to 6,000 in December if the present lowering infections trends continue.

We’ll keep an eye on it for you