Report From the Y2K International Center

From: James Husnay Sr. (jhusnay@scsinet.com)
Date: Tue Jan 04 2000 - 17:40:21 PST

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    Since I haven't seen this posted anywhere hopefully it will have
    interest to all at SeeSat-L who haven't had access to it..
    
    Statement of Bruce W. McConnell, Director, International Y2K Cooperation
    Center
    3 January 2000, 11:00 a.m. EST
    Washington
    
    As of this morning all is going very well. We continue to have no
    reports of serious disruptions
    anywhere in the world. We have now received "all green" reports from 135
    countries.
    
    On our international conference call this morning with Y2K coordinators
    from 10 countries, all
    participants reported that they were relaxing their monitoring
    operations and going to a more normal
    operating schedule.
    
    We are proud of the responsible and measured approach taken by countries
    around the world to
    address the potentially serious impacts of the Y2K computer problem.
    Without this work, serious
    disruptions would have occurred. We were ready for that potential.
    Unprecedented international
    cooperation, a resilient infrastructure, and the dedicated efforts of
    millions of Y2K workers have
    given us this exciting success. We are grateful for their hard work and
    for the good luck that have
    made this possible.
    
    We expect localized glitches and hiccups to continue to emerge over the
    weeks ahead. However, we
    are confident that these will be handled in the course of normal
    operations. This is because they will
    be localized and will occur sporadically, not simultaneously. Although
    they will in some cases
    temporarily degrade quality of service, we do not expect them to
    proliferate or interact to cause any
    serious disruptions.
    
    We have reports of individual failures. These range from the critical to
    the trivial. In the former
    category, yesterday we alerted our world contacts of a newly discovered
    failure in a kidney dialysis
    machine manufactured by a Swedish-based company. The automatic
    disinfection feature does not
    operate properly, risking transmission of infection from one patient to
    the next. This failure was
    noticed in Scotland on Saturday and the information picked up by our
    international health care team
    led by Ms. Kate Priestly of the United Kingdom's National Health
    Services Estates. The UK
    Medical Devices Agency has also posted an alert on this device.
    
    On the trivial side, Namibia reports that their radio station computer
    that schedules advertisements
    failed to function correctly. Advertisements are being scheduled
    manually and being aired as normal.
    
    Support for Y2K work must continue where it has not been completed. This
    is particularly true in
    nuclear energy plants in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
    However, because the systems
    involved solely provide management information, the fact that this work
    has not yet been completed
    does not pose any immediate safety threat whatsoever.
    
    Y2K has taught us much about how the world works. The world is both more
    resilient and more
    connected than we knew. Working together, nations are capable of
    managing a tough global
    challenge. The worlds information systems have had a complete work-over,
    and they are now
    passing the physical. We're in good shape for the new century.
    
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