Epilogue

Congratulations! You've just made it through the first sixteen hours of the outbreak.

As a result of the quick response of the emergency risk communication team, the local television news was able to cover the public health press conference in time for the eleven o’clock news last night. Public Health’s response was also covered widely in local media. Thanks to the quick activation of recorded messages in multiple languages, hundreds of people have already been able to get more information. Your website has also received more than a thousand hits in one night.

However, your risk communication team won’t have much time to rest on its initial success. In an event such as this, the need for risk communication would be intense and ongoing as people locally, nationally, and around the world would remain imminently at risk, and the news media would be covering the situation round-the-clock. Essential risk communication activities would include:

Maintaining capacity for meeting information demands and monitoring your effectiveness in reaching and educating your audiences
Ensuring all segments of the population are being reached with the same messages and information
Continuing to work with partners to promote consistent messages
Helping people cope by acknowledging public emotions of anxiety, grief, and distress resulting from illness, suffering, and death caused by the outbreak
Identifying ongoing concerns and information gaps
Evaluating communications response when the pandemic subsides