Advice on Coronavirus from the World Health Organization

31st Jan '20

Coronavirus In China

With the new strain of the coronavirus and its impact on China hitting the headlines, we want to allay fears customers and prospects may have about the current impact on supply from CEL Group.

We certainly don’t want to add to the current media noise. It clearly sells papers but we feel it is the last thing British business needs in the wake of Brexit and election uncertainties.

Amongst all the scary headlines, it is sometimes difficult to be sure what’s really going on. So, like us you may appreciate this article about de-escalating the war on coronavirus.

A little bit about 2019-nCov

China informed the World Health Organisation (WHO) that it had identified a new strain of the coronovirus (of which the common cold is one) on 31st December 2019. Called 2019-nCov, it is part of a family of viruses which can cause respiratory infections and may be fatal in very rare forms, such as SARs and MERs.

While there are deaths being reported by the media, the numbers are rarely being placed in context. We are not hearing of comparisons to size of population for example, or that many of the deaths are impacting vulnerable people with pre-existing conditions. These are currently nowhere near, proportionally, the fatalities we see from colds and flus across UK, Europe, or the US.

Agreed, there is much to learn about this virus, but for now we are focused on business as usual.

Management of coronavirus in China

China has moved quickly to control the source of the virus – a place called Wuhan. Methods involve restricting movement during Chinese New Year (CNY), delaying returns to work and providing protective advice. They have confirmed that there is investment in rapidly developing medication. From our experience, the Chinese are adept at making things happen quickly when they need to.

Our management staff at our facilities in China have confirmed that they feel the situation is in very much in control. And the atmosphere is far calmer than we are being led to believe here. Our team on the ground are now providing daily updates back to us, as part of our risk management processes.

CEL Group supply chain

The outbreak in Wuhan is a considerable distance from our supply chain locations. It is 923km from Ningbo, 1,094km from Shenzhen and 839km from Shanghai.

However, we know that this particular strain of coronavirus has reached all continents. So, we are continuing to take the risk management of any potential impacts of 2019-nCov on our supply chain seriously. Despite the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday, we have been putting management plans in place to minimise risk and take care of our people there, as well as here in the UK.

All our staff will follow the hygiene regimes and care a dvice from the WHO and advice from both the Chinese and British Governments.

The benefits of stockholding

We usually hold even more stock for our customers at this time of year. So any disruption to stock replenishment can be managed in the short term.

Our Logistics and Sales teams are monitoring the situation, even more closely than normal, to ensure we supply to agreed production schedules as normal.