Recipe for a Pandemic

ControNews

Web 🌎 https://www.contronews.org/en/ricetta-per-la-pandemia/ Telegram 🌎 https://t.me/Contronews Signal 🌎 https://signal.group/#CjQKIFATZtC6iKyHdG2Vr5U4MO1J87HXdoxwW7OqPPz20LdjEhDRCvB3T9S0Fh0Q0kR-6pMu  Dr. Marc van Ranst’s 15 steps to engineer and manage a psycho-pandemic, does it remind you of anything?

Transcript

00:07Thank you very much. Thanks for the invitation. And I was asked to to tell you about my experiences

00:12being the crisis manager, the flu commissioner for Belgium and highlighting the communication

00:19aspects there. These are some of my conflicts of interest over the past 20 years I guess.

00:25It all started for me at that time, well actually in 2006 when I was appointed. This is an unpaid

00:31hobby, so it's not a profession or a function, whatever. It's really a hobby, that flu commissioner

00:38thing. On April 24, 2009, that was when WHO said, okay, there will be a pandemic and that's when

00:47the thing started. And then you have one opportunity to do it right. I mean, day one is so important.

00:54In day one, you start your communication with the press, with the people and you have to

01:00do it right. I mean, you have to go for one voice, one message. In Belgium, they chose to appoint

01:06a

01:06non-politician to do that. I mean, I have no party affiliations and that makes things a little bit,

01:12at that time at least, a little bit easier because you're not attacked politically. Majority, minority,

01:18that doesn't come into play and that was a huge advantage. The second advantage is that you can

01:23play in Brussels the complete naive guy and get a lot more done than you would otherwise be able to

01:30do.

01:30So, one voice, one message. That's the tone that you set on day one and you have to be very

01:38transparent in that. My name is the Interministerial Commissary for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness

01:43Planning. That, of course, is too long. That became the flu commissary and that was a lot easier.

01:49You have to be omnipresent that first day or the first days so that you attract the media attention.

01:55You make an agreement with them that you will tell them all and if they call, you will pick up

02:00the

02:00phone. When you do that, then you can profit from these early days to get complete carpet coverage

02:05of the field and they're not going to search for alternative voices there. And if you do that,

02:12that makes things a lot easier. And then you convey the message and you can do that if you do

02:17it that

02:17way that our country is ready for a pandemic. That is a gross overestimation for sure. But it is crucial

02:26to go into that pandemic. First of all, what's in the name if you talk about the pandemic? It's quite

02:34important. People are talking about the swine flu, the pandemic H1N1, 0-9 virus, novel influenza, 2009

02:43H1N1 flu. At some point it was called the North American influenza, the novel flu virus. That was

02:49way too difficult. So we called it the Mexican flu. That got me into huge trouble with the ambassador

02:55of Mexico at that time. And she was furious. Afterwards, we became good friends. I still get

03:01invited to their New Year's reception every year. But people were making fun of it and okay,

03:07that's probably unavoidable. But the fact to have a clear and recognizable name which was easy for

03:13the lay public to understand and use was actually quite important. It also worked. This is the word

03:20of the year of 2009. Defriending on Facebook became number one. To my big disappointment, Mexican flu was

03:28second and flu commissary was number six. So the term works and that makes things a lot easier.

03:34These first weeks, that's easy street. When you have no opposition and everybody needs news and they

03:42can come to you for news, you can bring quite a lot of neutral information and it is picked up.

03:50Well, the news is brought the way you bring it and that is, you can only do that in the

03:55first couple

03:56of weeks or months. One of the problems that we have or that we had is that we did not

04:01have a media

04:01budget. That was really zero euros that we could spend. That means that you have to use every

04:07opportunity you can get to, well, it's not Britannia rules the waves, but rule the airwaves to bring out

04:15your message. And that's something that you can do for free on radio, on TV. If you have good

04:22pre-existing relationships with the media, you can try something else. We tried the following thing.

04:28We asked all of the anchors of the different TV stations, are you willing for free to participate

04:35in a sort of infomercial that you would pay for, all of you? And they said, yes, we'll do that.

04:43And

04:43that was hugely influential. And well, we would never be able, nobody would ever be able to pay for

04:49something like this. But if you have pretty good pre-existing relationships with them, then you can

04:56ask for a return favor and they will, or they might do that. One of the things that we tried,

05:01but it's 10 years ago, was using Facebook and Twitter, but, well, there were not enough people

05:07on Facebook and Twitter at that time to really have an impact. If we would do that now, that would

05:11be a

05:12prime channel to communicate. However, that works both ways. I mean, also the fake news would be

05:18transmitted much more readily through Facebook, through Twitter than it did 10 years ago.

05:26Answering the question of the day, no matter what the journalist's question is, is quite important.

05:33So we had a call center which was gradually becoming more and more populated. And every, almost hour to

05:40hour, and later day to day, you have to get an idea what are the questions that the people are

05:46asking.

05:46And every day, these questions were delivered multiple times, so that I could work them in,

05:52into the interviews, no matter what the question was. The first questions, that was the first peak,

05:58and that peak was about 900 calls per day at the moment, per week at the first peak. The first

06:06questions were travel related. Can I still go to Mexico? I have planned a vacation, can I get my money

06:13back?

06:14If you solve that problem by declaring an emergency, you help quite a lot of people,

06:18and that first peak goes, goes away. And then you have to predict the future. That's hard because

06:25the future has not happened yet. Predicting the past is a lot easier, but you have to predict the future

06:31in order to, to prepare the public, and not have an over and over exaggeration, or an exaggeration of

06:39the information in the press. So I said, okay, Belgium, small country, we will also have H1N1 cases.

06:46When you bring that, it is front page news. When then, a couple of days later, the first

06:51H1N1 case arrives in the country. It is the second time that they have to bring that news,

06:56so they bring it in a more muted, and I think appropriate way. But you can only do that when

07:01you

07:01prepare the scene for that. That was the second wave of questions. People were asking more questions

07:08about what do I do when I get sick, and so on. And that gives you the opportunity to work

07:14with that.

07:14And then you have to say, okay, well, we will have H1N1 deaths. Of course, that would be unavoidable.

07:20I used there Sir Donaldson's quote, where he said that in UK, by the peak of the epidemic, 40 people

07:28would die per day at the end of the summer. So 62 at that time million people in UK, 40

07:35deaths a day.

07:36I worked that out for Belgium. That would be seven deaths a day at the peak of the epidemic. I

07:41used

07:41that in the media. Seven Belgian flu deaths per day at the peak of the epidemic would be realistic.

07:47That is true in every year, even interpandemically. That is very, very conservative. However, talking

07:55about fatalities is important because when you say that, people say, wow, what do you mean? People die

08:00because of influenza? And that was a necessary step to take. And then, of course, a couple of days later,

08:07you had the first H1N1 death in the country, and the scene was set and it was already talked about.

08:13That was the third peak of questions where that were, well, the first death, it had an impact and

08:20you have to deal with that. I went to the first couple of funerals. You have to be very quiet,

08:25sit in the back, but it shows that you care. And I think that was, at that time, quite important.

08:32So, all in all, at that time, the overall feeling in the population, in the press, was the Belgian

08:38approach is reasonable. In fact, we wanted to be calm, cool, and collected. And our mantra was,

08:44and that was from day one, at this moment, it is comparable, more or less, to seasonal influenza,

08:50in terms of outcome. But we have to prepare for severe scenarios. Like in 1918, the first wave was

08:57rather mild, and you could not predict that the second wave would carry high mortality.

09:03We focus on low-cost basic hygiene measures. We did not do any school closures. We used antivirals

09:10for high-risk groups. Actually, we used antivirals in the beginning for people who were ill. I had

09:15pre-positioned cars in the different provinces, and they would drive antivirals to patients when they

09:21would be diagnosed by influenza in order to delay the onset of the epidemic, and that worked until

09:27the end of the school year. We only purchased one dose of vaccine per person, and the vaccination plan

09:36would be to vaccinate more or less the same high-risk groups as for seasonal influenza.

09:42And then the vacation came. And that is, communication-wise, a very dangerous period.

09:48It's a dangerous period because the more untrained journalists are at the helm,

09:54and you get the weirdest questions. They're understaffed, so more articles from other countries

09:59will come in and contaminate your message. And that was a weird period. That was pictures that my

10:06father took from the holiday with the grandchildren. I was not the most social guy, I must admit. And my

10:17son was born two weeks before the pandemic struck, so that was not a good time. And then comes the

10:24time,

10:24inevitably, that they're going to talk about you. The flu commissioner is really a great guy.

10:30And then you get the feel-good articles about what does he like, what music does he like, pictures from

10:38my

10:38first laboratory when I was 13 years old. And it's all feel-good, but when they do that, they also

10:45sharpen the

10:46axes at the same time. And then your personal life becomes a little bit compromised.

10:56And so then they come to your home, and you have to really limit that, because if you do not

11:02limit that,

11:02then you have no life. And then comes, then everything is said about the pandemic, about you,

11:10and then they search for controversy. At a certain point in time, I had a controversy about the

11:16payment of the physicians for the mass vaccination that would happen in a couple of months or a couple

11:22weeks later. And then the quote that I gave them in terms of how much money they would receive,

11:27that was far too low, and I had to be fired. You can solve that quite easily. I said, okay,

11:33you want me to be fired. I would like to win the lottery. The odds of both of these things

11:37are

11:38happening are fairly slim, and that passed. And then you come to the phase where they're going to be

11:45much more critical. And the first one was, the government does not do enough. The H1N1 vaccine

11:51will arrive too late, and there will not be enough vaccine. Get it while you can. That was the,

11:56that was the first, the first really atmosphere that was created. So not enough vaccine, get it while

12:04you can. So at that point, I had to say, okay, I will be the last one to be vaccinated.

12:09I mean,

12:09you can all go in before me. I'll, I'll be, I'll be the last one. And, and that, uh, uh,

12:16later on,

12:17I regretted that, uh, at that message. That vaccination got campaign got a, a, a huge number

12:24of questions. That was actually the, the, uh, the crux of the, uh, of the campaign was the, the

12:29vaccination campaign. And many people had, uh, had questions there. So you had to show them that you

12:34had, I mean, if the stockpiles, you had to walk there and walk in the, uh, in the rooms where

12:39the, where you could show them that we have the vaccines and they're, they are already in the

12:44country. Uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of reassurance was necessary there. And then you had to pick, uh,

12:51who is going to be vaccinated first? And then, well, women and children first, whatever. I mean, risk

12:57groups, they were important. And then I misused the, uh, the fact that the, uh, the top, top football,

13:03soccer clubs in Belgium, um, inappropriately, uh, and against all, uh, agreements,

13:09vaccinated their, uh, they made their soccer players priority people. So I said, I can use that

13:15because if the, the population really believes that this, this vaccine is so desirable

13:20that even the soccer players would be dishonest to get their vaccine. Uh, I said, okay, I can,

13:26I can play with that. So I made a big fuss about this. This is found once this, uh, is

13:30raving mad.

13:31Uh, but, but it worked and, uh, and actually these vaccination campaigns by the GPs went really,

13:39really well in a number of weeks. Everybody could be, uh, could be vaccinated. That's still a fairly

13:44relevant portion of the, uh, of the pandemic. Well, it, it worked fine in Flanders. Um, so,

13:50you know, Belgium, it's a complicated country. Um, and, and this is the, the vaccination coverage.

13:56And you could see Flanders did really well. Um, I, I, I did as many interviews in French than,

14:03than in Dutch. However, in, uh, in the Flemish part of the country, we listened to the Flemish media.

14:10Uh, in the French speaking part of the country, they equally often listen to the, uh, or watch the

14:15French television where all kinds of other messages were, were coming across. And that was, uh, really

14:21polluting the, uh, the vaccination campaign in. And then, of course, people say, okay,

14:27the vaccine is unsafe. And then you, you get the, the swine flu hoax. And, uh, and, uh,

14:32the vaccine could kill you. Say no to the vaccine. That atmosphere starts. And then after the crisis,

14:37everybody becomes smart. Yeah. And you, you have to accept that from the, from the get go. Uh,

14:43and then the overall statement was, no, well, the government did too much, of course, because,

14:47uh, uh, the number of deaths were disappointing to some people. And then all the books are written,

14:53uh, and, and everybody uses all the data and forgets that you had to take the decisions based on

14:58a fragment of the data that were available, um, or that would be available later on. And then it was

15:05turned into a scam. People were really making money out of it. And, uh, and I think the, the,

15:10the Council of Europe played a, a very bad role in this. Uh, this is Wolfgang Wodarg. And I want

15:16to

15:16shame him actually, uh, because he, uh, in the Council of Europe had a motion for a recommendation,

15:22fake pandemics, a threat for health. They basically said that all these, uh, all these

15:26virologists, vaccinologists, uh, they all have money in their pockets. They're, they're dishonest people.

15:31That's easy to say. This is when you Google for H1N1. Of course, there was a peak in October and

15:36November. You didn't hear Wodarg at that time. When you Google Wodarg, you see that it starts nicely

15:42after the end of the pandemic. People become very brave at the end of the pandemic. I think

15:47that's, uh, that's not good. Then as time goes by, I still have one minute and 51 seconds. I would

15:53like

15:53to, uh, actually issue a warning. Uh, this all started in, well, April 2009. Many years have passed. In fact,

16:023,560 days today, 508 weeks and almost 10 years have passed. And that has an impact. Because people are

16:10forgetting about the pandemics a little bit. This is when you look for influenza and pandemic in PubMed.

16:17Until 2003, 2004, there wasn't much. Then H5N1 came and some interest was raised. Then the, uh, the 2009

16:25pandemic arrived and there was a lot of interest. And that is what happened since. So the interest is,

16:30uh, scientifically is, uh, is going down. Also, the leadership is changing. And this was a good exercise

16:37for a, a big pandemic. I agree. But, uh, when we're moving farther away from 2009, that experience is

16:45being lost. At that time, Margaret Chen, lead the TWHO, Tom Frieden, CDC, uh, Suzanne Jacob, the ECDC. Well,

16:53we're now one or two directors further. And that experience from 2009 have, of course, been other

17:00experiences. But that one is not there anymore. The same for the leadership, the political leadership.

17:05At that time, Obama, Brown, Sarkozy in Belgium, Van Rompuy were there. And, well, there were two or three,

17:11uh, political leaders further down the road. And, uh, and a lot of what was learned in 2009 has been

17:18sort of unlearned and, uh, and would have to be invented all. Well, there is still Angela Merkel.

17:25Yeah. And Appelsterhaus. They're the, they're the mainstays.

17:34We, we can always count on them. Yeah. So, are we ready for the, uh, for the next pandemic? I

17:39don't

17:39think we are. But I would say that pandemics are like a box of chocolates. Uh, and then I would

17:44like

17:44to invoke the words of the philosopher Forrest Gump. You, you never know what you're gonna get. Yeah. Thank you.

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