Southwest Health District has three words of advice for businesses both large and small: Get ready. Now.

"Although the outbreak of novel influenza virus H1N1 seems to be subsiding nationally, the disease still has the potential to surge, resulting in a shut-down of daily business in the United States
mirroring the one that gripped Mexico," said Southwest Health District Health Director Dr. Jacqueline Grant. "We’ve warned that a full-blown pandemic could disrupt how our society functions. What happened in Mexico gave us a glimpse of what could happen here."  Area businesses and industry should use the H1N1 outbreak as a prompt to review and tweak contingency plans, or develop such a plan if they don’t already have one in place," said Grant. 

Grant says all Georgians should consider H1N1 a wakeup call.