The government is still not acting fast enough on swine flu

Take the following notes from the US CDC (Cnetre for Disease Control ) web site, I've underlined the key part:

How can someone with the flu infect someone else?
Infected people may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 7 or more days after becoming sick. That means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick.

And yet the UK Govt is sending people home and letting them off airplanes from Mexico to wonder round the country with the advice to phone NHS Direct / their GP is they feal unwell.

It could be too late. There may now be a number of people without obvious connections to those who returned from Mexico wondering around the country shedding virus, some of whom haven't developed symptoms yet and maybe some are carriers with very mild cases.

We have confirmed cases with considerable geographic spread already and advice which might identify cases one day after they become infectious.

Things are on a knife edge right now. Perhaps the initial wave of infections can be contained. Perhaps human to human transmission will prove harder in the UK. The government has decided to gamble.

What they could have done was book a nice friendly hotel to Quarantine people in for 5-7 days on their return from Mexico.

Instead, because the guidance says so, they have let people fan out across the country.

This could yet be a very costly mistake.

There is a real lack on initiative in government right now - all they think about is how they might look to head of criticism ( hence ordering supplies which they know propoably they should have ordered years ago ).

Lets hope this doesn't take hold.