Toronto Responds to SARS
By Gary Schlee, ABC
Toronto didn't see it coming. On April 23, the World Health
Organization advised people to avoid the Canadian city while
it battled its outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
(SARS). Toronto? Seriously? Most residents were stunned.
For the communications staff at the City of Toronto, it was
the biggest challenge yet in a drama that had been playing
out for over two months.
Act 1: Enter SARS
When three cases of the severe form of pneumonia were confirmed
in early March, communication efforts by the city were aimed
at residents who had visited the affected hospital. They were
being asked to go into a voluntary 10-day quarantine. "From
the beginning, the focus was on public health," says
Kevin Sack, who handles media relations for Toronto.
It was public health officers who played the dominant communication
role. Political leaders stepped aside, leaving official pronouncements
and news conferences to Dr. Sheela Basrur, Toronto's Medical
Officer of Health, and her provincial counterparts.
A few weeks into the outbreak, there was a growing clamour
from the media and the public for a political presence. While
conventional wisdom suggested this wasn't a moment for politicians,
people were looking for what one journalist called "a
Rudy Giuliani response" (the visible take-charge role
of New York's mayor following 9/11).
Valerie Chavossy, director of corporate communications for
Toronto, maintains that having a public health focus in the
early weeks was "the right thing to do. The public followed
the instructions of the public health officials who were candid,
calm and answered questions. In fact, the ratio of people
who went into voluntary isolation was quite astonishing."
By mid-April, the number of SARS cases, which had peaked
at about 300, was actually dropping. The typical Torontonian's
exposure to SARS was limited to possibly knowing someone who
had gone into quarantine. But, beyond Toronto, the fear was
spreading much faster than the virus.
Act 2: Public Information vs. Public Panic
"We needed to work aggressively to establish differences
between SARS in Toronto and SARS in Asia," notes Sack.
"The media would often be talking about the outbreak
in Toronto while showing footage from China where many people
on the streets were wearing masks."
One U.S. network's showed Toronto health care workers wearing
masks at a hospital entrance, giving the impression it was
a general street scene. "We responded quickly, indicating
the representation was misleading," says Sack, and we
didn't see that happening again."
Internal communications was also a focus, particularly for
one floor of Metro Hall where nearly 2,000 employees went
into quarantine. "We had to be nimble," says Chavossy.
Working Sunday evening and overnight, staff developed a personal
memo that was delivered to every desk in the building for
the next morning.
Face-to-face meetings with staff also took place. Public
health officers were available to chat with employees affected
by the quarantine. "We then limited the staff email system
to SARS-related material for awhile. This included daily updates."
Act 3: Response to the WHO Whammy
When the WHO travel advisory hit, the reaction from the city's
communicators was swift.
A video news release was produced in-house and uploaded to
satellite within 36 hours. In it, the city's mayor and Dr.
Basrur reiterated that SARS in Toronto was contained and on
the wane. Toronto was a safe place to be. "Putting the
release on satellite was $16,000 (CAN) well spent," says
Chavossy. "It was picked up by more than 300 U.S. markets.
Canada NewsWire described it as the biggest pickup they've
ever had."
Sack and others handled convention inquiries, and Dr. Basrur
made herself available to talk to convention organizers to
ease their concerns. (Basrur also participated in a SARS panel
discussion at the IABC Conference.)
A team of health officers and political leaders had a very
visible send-off to WHO headquarters in Geneva where they
argued to have the advisory lifted.
Help also came from some surprising and welcome sources.
Tickets to a Toronto Blues Jays baseball game were offered
for $1, jamming the SkyDome. Theatre/hotel/restaurant packages
were being offered for $125. The response was so strong, the
offer was extended to the end of June. Oil companies slashed
prices at the gas pumps on the weekend following the decision
to lift the ban.
Act 4: The Recovery
A second VNR was produced announcing the April 29 lifting
of the WHO travel advisory. Toronto's mayor created a recovery
task force that hired BBDO to develop an ad campaign to re-establish
confidence in Toronto as a travel destination. Fleishman Hillard
is providing public relations assistance for the campaign,
called Toronto: You Belong Here.
Evaluation of the communications efforts is ongoing. "Some
indications of success were clear, like the lifting of the
travel advisory and the fact that residents realized they
didn't need to wear masks in public," notes Sack. The
city is also closely tracking statistics about visitors, as
well as the economic impact on the beleaguered hospitality
and health care sectors.
Act 5: A Second Wave
Just when the city was collectively catching its breath, a
second SARS wave surfaced in late May - again limited to several
health care facilities. But, with more residents heading into
quarantine, Toronto's corporate communications department
couldn't shelve its tactical plan yet.
Roll out dates for the confidence campaign needed to be reviewed,
and the staff - along with the province - worked hard to help
assure a second travel advisory would not be issued (it wasn't).
Act 6: The New Normal
The two SARS attacks in Toronto have created a new health
care vigilance being described as 'the new normal'. As a communication
case, the issue is still playing out as Toronto grapples with
restoring confidence and attracting financial aid. Speaking
at the IABC Conference in mid-June, Dr. Basrur described analyzing
the communications response at this stage was much like doing
an autopsy while the patient is still alive.
Author's Note:
Oh, the irony! I originally sent this story to IABC from
voluntaryisolation. The quarantine was the result of a visit
to a PR student internat a Toronto hospital that became a
centre of the re-emergence of SARS on May 22.
Here was the dilemma at the time. Do I share this ludicrous
coincidence with readers? After all, the thrust of the story
was that the impact of SARS on the safety of Toronto was negligible.
As a quarantine statistic, I represented a group that was
well under one percent of the population.
Delegates to the IABC conference were probably already skittish
about visiting Toronto without discovering that the writer
of this piece was "working from home."
Still, it wouldn't be responsible to keep this to myself,
would it? The fact that the story was bumped to a date after
the conference made the revelation much less tantalizing.
Gary Schlee, ABC, is a professor of Corporate Communications
at Centennial College's Centre for Creative Communications
in Toronto. A past president of IABC/Toronto, he has served
internationally on the Accreditation board and ethics committee.
He can be reached at gschlee@centennialcollege.ca.
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