**4. Application of RM to cope with PHEC-19**

#### **4.1 An unexpected health emergency**

Manufacturing plants were not prepared to face a problem like PHEC-19. The effects of PHEC-19 are less evident that those of a "typical disaster" and this means that problems might pass undetected. We must keep in mind that to have problems is not good, but not to be aware of them is even worst!

Still, the situation created by the COVID-19 is far from being an "unimaginable surprise". In fact, both science and history show that this is a "normal" event.

On the one hand, we know that living beings are constantly evolving and that mutations are the engine of this evolution. A new organism, caused by a mutation, may challenge its environment until the necessary adaptation occurs. Either it loses virulence or the other beings develop defenses against it.

On the other hand, the arrival of a novel infectious agent is nothing new. We can easily remember, for example, what happened several centuries ago when the black plague arrived in Europe. Then, it was an unknown disease, for which there was no treatment, and it caused a very high mortality. This "unforeseen health emergency" came from the Asian steppes, where the causal agent, *Yersinia pestis*, is endemic among groundhogs. The initial diffusers of this bacillus were the Mongol hordes that invaded large areas of the Eurasian continent. Afterwards, however, diffusion took place along trade routes [6].

It is interesting to recall that, in the absence of effective medicines or vaccines, black plague was fought, and finally controlled, by applying confinement and separation measures.

Black plague is just an example but we could mention many other. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes acquired immunodeficiency

*Dealing with Unforeseen Circumstances. Implication of Risk Management in the COVID-19… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97408*

syndrome (AIDS), was also a newcomer in the last years of the 20th century. We also know that in past centuries many people from outside Europe died because of "new" (for them) pathogenic agents diffused by European explorers and colonizers.
