ANNOUNCEMENT of COMING BOOK on COMBINED COVID-19 and FLU BETTER MANAGEMENT

Announcement of Book Coming Soon on “Strategic Initiatives for Better Managing the Combined COVID-19 and Flu Attacks”

Former FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner John Norris’ Book of Collected Thoughts on Better Managing Infectious Disease Spread Both in the US and Worldwide, Starting with Combined COVID-19 and the Flu

A few details about my collected thoughts on better managing infectious diseases both in the us and worldwide

-- By Former FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner John Norris, JD, MBA

Infectious diseases are serial killers on the grandest scale.  For that reason, I have spent decades on the question: How do we most effectively mitigate the spread and mortality impact of infectious diseases?  

We face this in a twin set with COVID-19 and our recurring flu season beginning as soon as November or early December.  This provides an opportunity to update our understandings and responses to bring most current learnings and best practices to the spread mitigation process.

Recently, I wrote and published 15 short strategic articles on this topic. It took a great deal of time and effort to do this. In the interests of mankind, though, I was eager and pleased to spend all of the time and energy I could muster, in this way. It truly was a labor of love.

For whatever value this collection of strategic infectious disease spread mitigation articles (in the form of a free short book) might be to you, to your friends, to your colleagues, and to the local, county, and state leaders, as well as to the national and international leaders, you might respect and admire, I want to share these 15 articles with you. 

I hope this collection of spread-mitigation articles might form another building block for deep and thoughtful discussion of how we might do a better job of managing infectious diseases than we have done since the more detailed discovery of germs, their spread mechanisms, and more powerful infectious disease mitigation strategies post the US Civil War, ala 1850.

Efforts in 1919, and over recent decades, to manage the flu, a complex infectious disease, one that mutates annually, have been poor—or worse, depending upon what part of the US or the world you might reside. We can and should be able to do far better, right now. The strategies we, and our neighbor countries, have used to date have been weak and misguided. 

I recently gave three talks in India, and I observed first-hand the desperation of the bulk of the India population in terms of managing the spread of infectious diseases. People who are economically, educationally, and vocationally challenged, as well as locationally and genetically challenged (in terms of the properties of their innate immune systems), have little chance to protect themselves from at-home and at-work infectious disease spread, especially in cases involving the spread of highly infectious diseases, such as COVID-19 and the flu.

In the case of COVID-19 spread mitigation, we have done reasonably well, given that we knew little at the outset in mid-March and we had to learn on the run. But, again we can now do far better. The strategies we have used since mid-June or so certainly have also been weak and misguided. 

In essence, under both situations, COID-19 and the flu, we have been managing spread from the completely wrong direction: from the top-down direction rather than from the smarter, short-term, but especially long-term, bottom-up direction. Creating virus-free sanctuaries at home and at work (while remaining working; and thereby avoiding all of the many downfalls and side effects of economy close-downs or reclosures, from increased numbers of suicides to broken national and local economies) makes far more sense. 

For example, we can now access (1) very low-cost (10x to 20x cheaper), (2) very fast (truly 15-miniutes all-in; not really 24-hours to 48-hours but promoted as 15-minutes), and (3) similarly effective, (4) fully self-administered, (5) in essence lab-on-a-chip testing, to create and sustain 20,000 to 100,000 at-work virus-free sanctuaries, both large and small. This makes much more sense—socially, ethically, and morally, as well as legally and economically—than the “ad hoc, hit-or-miss,” strategies and methods we (and most other countries) have been employing post-June, when by then it was confirmed that my strategic solution is a better solution.

Throughout my articles, I not only identify strategic errors, but also set forth needed steps and an overall plan to correct them. 

I hope you, your friends, and colleagues, and your local, county, and state leaders, as well as those national and international leaders you believe might be interested, will find these combined strategic visions, insights, and thoughts, as well as plans and initiatives, helpful. I welcome thoughtful challenges and extended thinking, too.

Thanks for helping me to think through this complex matter and helping to spread those of my strategic ideas you view as worth spreading.

Best,

John Norris

FDA Former Principal Deputy Commissioner John A. Norris, JD, MBA

Cell: 617-680-3127 Email: mailto:[email protected]