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And if this fizzles out people will just go "see? there was no need for these drastic measures, nothing happened!"... Nothing happened because drastic measures

• Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Another scenario is drastic measures are taken but the threat fizzles out on its own. With infectious diseases it can be quite difficult to know until it is over just how real the threat was. President Ford pushed for a widespread inoculation program for a swine flu epidemic that seemed threatening but never came. The vaccine caused more health problems than the flu itself. Ford was heavily criticized and lost credibility for his level of response but there was no way for him to know it would fizzle out on its own. Had he not acted and it became an epidemic, he also would have faced political consequences. Sometimes the best response simply can't be known ahead of time.