Responding to Covid19

At the end of December 2019, several cases of acute respiratory syndrome were detected in Wuhan City, Hubei province, China.

By January 2020, the cause had been identified as COVID-19, a novel corona virus that had not previously been identified in humans and for which we have no natural immunity or available pharmaceutical treatment.

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation declared a global pandemic, with cases rising rapidly across the globe.

COVID-19 has a fatality rate around 20 times that of seasonal flu, with an estimated average rate of 2% .

Fatality rates increase dramatically with age, with fatality rates of up to 20% observed in the over-80s population.

In response, Governments across the world were forced to respond by imposing draconian lock-downs. This has caused significant disruption to the global economy, with simultaneous demand, supply and financial shocks.

At the same time, the response has had the impact of dramatically accelerated the pace of digitisation in many industries, as companies adapted their business models to social distancing measures.

In this report, drafted in March 2020 as the scale of the challenge presented by Covid19 became apparent, we set out a response strategy framework to guide businesses in confronting the new operating realities.