Swine flu hits my Project!!!

This had to come at some point of time. Every day I get umpteen calls from my wife, parents, inlaws - inquiring about my whereabouts (now I know why cricketers are protesting the WADA rules ;-P), instructing me to wear mask, stop going out in public places etc. Their concern is genuine as they see the media frenzy in TV - about how the virus is spreading in Pune. Just yesterday I was discussing with a friend about how parents of outstation people would be feeling concerned about the alarming situation here and in morning one of my team mates dropped the bombshell.

The team mate's parents who stay in MP have asked him to come back home immediately. The person calls me up in morning informing me that he would like to go on leave with effect from today as his parents are very disturbed with the events. Now the project on which resource is already 3 weeks behind schedule and its on critical path currently. The visibility for the project is high within the organization and the stakes are high. I tried reasoning with him that going on leave will not help and try educating your parents about the measures that organization has taken and all. The team mate comes to office in a disheveled shape. He has a mask on and wearing full jacket. He informs me that he tried his best but of no use. The AR also informs me that we cannot stop any resource from going back home in this kind of scenario. My concern was that this will have a cascading effect. But then the resource drops a bombshell. He tells me that he had been feeling feverish since ysday, had slight cold and is on medicine which has been prescribed by the local GP and if the symptoms persists in couple fo days, he asked him to get swine flu test done. As he spoke with me thru his mask - I just held my breath (hey! it's swine flu around!)but then I had to release it ;-) Immediately I asked him to go on leave :-) and rushed in the loo to wash my hands!!! (couldn't believe I did this!..and what made me do this!) Seeing him in that state I could understand why his parents were concerned. I can see similar symptoms ( worried parents tracking their kids) being passed on to other outstation resources in my team. For me & other senior members of the team - it's like a war situation here on Ground Zero. People want to go on leave and we are on acute shortage of resources. Wearing masks they keep working on- regularly attending calls from worried parents.

Which brings me to more important topic - how to ensure business continuity? people who want to take precautionary leave should have the flexibility from working from home. At an organizational level, perhaps trial versions of critical softwares needed for project should be installed in personal desktops/laptops of the resources. Daily checkin/checkouts can be committed through VPN line or the code can be shared on project ftp server and someone in office can commit the same in SVN repository. Importantly, the client also needs to be educated that given the scenario, there might be some impact to the dates of the project.