Course Overview

When a disease spreads and affects mass i.e. a large number of people within a community, region or population of a country it is termed as an Epidemic.  An Epidemic can outgrow and lead to Pandemic status.Yellow fever, smallpox, measles, and polio are few examples of epidemics. Whereas pandemic is an epidemic which has spread from one place to another and over multiple countries or continents.

As the pandemics are large scale and have a wide geographical reach it leads to huge loss in terms of social disruption, economic growth and loss, and suffering caused to the public in general.

Before COVID 19, the world had witnessed many other pandemics like The Black Death (1346 - 1353), American Plagues (16th Century), The Flu Pandemic (1889-1890), Spanish Flu (1918-1920), The Asian Flu (1957-1958) and AIDS Pandemic and Epidemic (1981-present).

The leaders across the world faced immense challenges during the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic emergency. The pandemic highlighted the importance of health and wellbeing of people across globe and at the same time also acknowledged the measures of preparedness and the response to any future events by the leaders of various organisations and across different countries.

Leaders not only need a predefined plan but also need to have the right frame of mind to analyse the day to day developments during the crisis and plan a response based on its requirements. 

Due to unpredictable and unprecedented demands during the time of crisis such as COVID 19, the epidemic and pandemic leaderships have evolved over a period of time.

Learning Objectives

• What are Epidemic and Pandemic leadership
• Leadership’s role in Epidemic and Pandemic preparedness
• Impact of leadership during COVID 19