First of all, if it mutates, a vaccine is unlikely to be available until after it has opportunity to spread widely. Therefore vaccination cannot be your desired first response.

Secondly diseases that have the potential to go panendemic are either big or small. There is no in between. If the public health system controls it, only a few thousand catch it. If the public health system collapses, millions do. For instance SARS could have killed hundreds of millions. But public health worked in that case.

Thirdly the big issue that public health has to think carefully about is handling the current crisis versus handling future ones. Massive publicity will make a crisis more manageable. But if the public health response works, people aren't really aware of the bullet dodged. So the publicity starts looking like a case of crying wolf. That's why public health people don't shout about every crisis from the rooftops - they want to save that bullet for a crisis where public health's less drastic approaches have clearly failed.

Of course all of this is beyond curious George, and I doubt that he has appointed people with appropriate expertise to manage the situation if a crisis hits. :-(

Cheers,
Ben