Education, Information and Action — A Conversation on Responding to Coronavirus

By Robert Leonard, Executive Vice President

With Coronavirus dominating the headlines, we took a few minutes to talk with DKC EVP Robert Leonard, who heads the agency’s public and life safety practice. Prior to joining DKC, Robert spent ten years working in emergency services and public safety communications and operations roles for the City of New York during the 1990s. Outside of the office, Robert has been a certified Emergency Medical Technician and volunteer firefighter for 30 years and remains very active in emergency response and disaster management planning and operations.

Q: Coronavirus is dominating the conversation both here in the U.S. and internationally. What are your overall thoughts from a communications perspective?

RL: This is a serious topic that individuals, companies and organizations should be having intelligent and productive conversations about. Unfortunately, thanks to the abundance of information coming at us from a variety of sources, it can be a challenge to decide which information is legitimate, accurate and pertains best to your personal or organization’s situation. Because the situation is so rapidly changing, there is a great deal of uncertainty, along with a fair amount of overreaction, and in some cases panic. We all need to be reading carefully and getting our information from trusted sources, such as national or local public health officials.

Q: What have you been hearing from clients?

RL: We have been getting inquiries from numerous clients with a variety of concerns and unique communications challenges as it pertains to the Coronavirus. Clients are concerned first and foremost with the health and well-being of their staff, their customers/clients and their business partners. Everybody wants to be doing all they can to keep their most important asset — their people — healthy and safe, and the way they communicate their emergency preparedness plans to their constituents is of the utmost importance.

Many businesses and organizations are also dealing with the impact coronavirus is having on their ability to deliver products, goods and services to their customers and sustain their businesses. Business continuity planning is another key priority, and communicating to customers and business partners about any business changes or disruptions resulting from coronavirus is an imperative, even if changes are ongoing.

Q: What are you advising your clients in terms of how they communicate with their employees, their customers and their business partners?

RL: We are currently helping several major clients navigate this ever-changing situation. First, we are recommending that our clients closely monitor local conditions and the information coming out of their state or local public health — and when needed, we will work with them to do so. While there are some universal messages — good hygiene, stay home if you are sick, monitor staff or business partners for travel to areas of high concentration — the situation in one city or region of the country may be very different from that in another. For example, DKC has seven offices across four states and the District of Columbia. We have the General Manager of each office closely monitoring local conditions and guidance from local public health officials and we share this information with our Coronavirus Action Plan committee in real time. The team also shares best practices or experiences in their office with other offices across the firm.

Once a client has the best local public health information, they need to be communicating regularly with their staff and customers/clients. They also need to develop contingency plans to continue operations should conditions in their region change. This contingency planning process should also take into consideration plans to deal with changing conditions in any region or city in which the organization operates or does business.

Q: DKC announced a new partnership with Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. (NCDP). Can you tell us about this unique collaboration?

RL: DKC has had a relationship with the Director of the Center that dates back to the start of the firm almost 30 years ago. Dr. Irwin Redlener’s team at NCDP has extensive experience responding to disasters of all types and scale and Dr. Redlener himself is also a seasoned veteran of public health issues. DKC’s public and life safety team, as well as our crisis management practice along with our digital media and data analytics teams, bring a wealth of crisis communications experience and knowledge to the partnership. The DKC/NCDP team will help businesses, organizations and institutions identify operational vulnerabilities and take the appropriate communications steps to ensure safety and minimize business disruption during this public health crisis.

Q: How do you feel your personal experience in emergency response and disaster preparedness has helped you prepare for the challenges presented by Coronavirus?

I have had the unique opportunity to work for the last thirty years at the intersection of emergency response/disaster preparedness and communications, with specific experience working with corporate entities such as iconic Manhattan real estate properties, public utilities, transportation systems, hospital systems and others on emergency preparedness and response, as well as working with numerous clients in the direct aftermath of 9/11. Any emergency or disaster is a major issue for those impacted — whether it be a factory fire shutting down a small company’s means of producing products to a major incident like the September 11th attacks or Hurricane Sandy impacting health, safety, transportation and commerce across an entire region or the nation. It is truly a privilege to apply the lessons I have learned over the last 30 years — both as a communications professional and a first responder — to the current situation on behalf of both my clients and my colleagues at DKC.

Q: Finally, what are you hearing from your colleagues in both the communications and emergency preparedness fields?

Public health and emergency preparedness colleagues are seeking to take steps to educate the public on good hygiene procedures that can prevent the spread of the virus, including identifying at-risk populations and assuring they understand the need for these folks to be even more vigilant and careful. They are also educating those who may have been exposed or are presenting with related symptoms on what steps they should be taking to seek medical advice and treatment or testing Finally, the public health and other government officials are waging a daily battle against misinformation, excess fear and panic. This is a serious public health issue, but as New York’s Governor Cuomo said this week, “We have an epidemic caused by Coronavirus, but we have a pandemic that is caused by fear.”