On Pandemic Preparedness

US Health and Human Services
Secretary Michael Leavitt said:

"If there is one message on pandemic preparedness that I could leave today that you would remember, it would be this:

Any community that fails to prepare with the expectation that the federal government or for that matter the state government will be able to step forward and come to their rescue at the final hour will be tragically wrong,

not because government will lack a will, not because we lack a collective wallet, but because there is no way that you can respond to every hometown in America at the same time."

Sobering advice for communities in Japan, that will be on the front lines
when a virus eventually mutates and emerges from the Asian continent.

We all need to be better prepared.