Somehow this doesn't seem all that bad to me, but I'm not at all involved in the process. The people who are seem concerned.

"What's happening right now is not about public health surveillance and science," he told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. "It's about politics and risk communication."

Osterholm said WHO's delayed decision has cost the agency credibility.

"As soon as you try to incorporate risk messaging into science, you are on a slippery slope," he said. "WHO has exacerbated the issue by dancing around it."

"The writing has been on the wall for weeks," said Chris Smith, a flu virologist at Cambridge University, adding he didn't know why WHO had waited so long to declare a pandemic. "WHO probably doesn't want people to panic, but the virus is now unstoppable."

(I can't help but wonder if Conservatives will deny it, talk about a conspiracy of liberals trying to somehow, some way make money by inconveniencing good, honest people. And maybe they'll embrace the idea that there is a public health risk.)

Arf