Well-played H1N1 reaction

ARTICLE: U.S. Reaction to Swine Flu: Apt and Lucky, By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., New York Times, January 1, 2010

Both late-term Bush-Cheney and early-term Obama-Biden get credit on this one:

Although it is too early to write the obituary for swine flu, medical experts, already assessing how the first pandemic in 40 years has been handled, have found that while luck played a part, a series of rapid but conservative decisions by federal officials worked out better than many had dared hope.

Like with Y2K, it's always dangerous to say the alarm-sounders were wrong, as the aggressive, comprehensive, pre-emptive response to a possible System Perturbation is almost always justified on the basis of constituting good practice--alone.