Obviously in the instance of a severe pandemic influenza outbreak, doctors, nurses, and firefighters are essential but so are truck drivers, communications personnel, and utility workers, according to the conclusions of a Johns Hopkins University article in Biosecurity and Bioterrorism.
The report, led by Nancy Kass, Sc.D, Deputy Director of Public Health for the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, provides ethical guidance for pandemic planning that ensures a skeletal infrastructure remain intact at all times. Dr. Kass says, "when preparing for a severe pandemic flu it is crucial for leaders to recognize that if the public has limited or no access to food, water, sewage systems, fuel and communications, the secondary consequences may cause greater sickness death and social breakdown than the virus itself."