WEATHERING THE STORM – COVID-19 UPDATE
It has become clear that the potential severity of the coronavirus outbreak is only now being fully appreciated, and that correspondingly more drastic measures now need to be taken in order to keep it from becoming a fullscale epidemic. It should go without saying that all of us at Cairn Research will be doing our utmost to protect both our staff and you, our customers, especially during the critical next few weeks. Once this critical phase has passed, then some relaxation for everyone may begin to be possible, but of course some measures will likely need to remain in place for a possibly substantial period thereafter.
Meanwhile, the need for ALL of us to minimise the risk of virus transmission cannot be overstated. As explained in this particularly informative article, we need to bring the infection rate down to zero NOW in order to prevent an explosive peak.
Unfortunately the advice from some governments, including in the UK, has concentrated on protecting more vulnerable people from the virus (for whom it should already be obvious that they must be careful), instead of explaining that it’s the spread of the virus between currently healthy people which is the real danger (and which isn’t nearly so obvious unless you read the article). In this posting we are doing our best, in some small way, to help correct this situation, as well as explaining our own measures.
Our own situation is relatively fortunate in that both our rural farm location and our relatively large premises area in respect of our number of employees mean that a reasonable proportion of us can still come to work while keeping the recommended minimum distances between each other. However, many of us are nevertheless working from home wherever possible, and and thanks to the connectivity that we all currently enjoy, this is proving to be quite seamless. For now at least, site visits to see any of you are, sadly, likely to be out of the question, but videoconferencing is already an established part of Cairn life, so of course we can continue to interact with you in that way – so do please try to make the most of this possibility. And of course we can continue to accept and supply most orders as before.
But for you too, there is inevitably a significant disruption to your own normal working practices. So this is going to be a good time for all of us to think about the future, about which the one thing we do know is that it is going to arrive. We at Cairn continue to have a very busy R&D schedule, but this is nevertheless a particularly good time for all of us to make plans for when the storm passes – as it surely will. So whatever your plans may be, we can assure that we’ll still be here to help in any way we can. You know where to find us!
Martin Thomas, Chairman, Cairn Research Ltd
