Why lax on swine flu at LAX?

In an earlier post today I asked why the Heathrow and LAX responses to swine flu seem deficient when compared to other airports' precautions. A few answers have since come to mind.

First, unpleasant experiences might inspire intense swine flu prevention efforts in Korean and Japanese airports. In particular, health officials in these countries might want to avoid repeating the mistakes from SARS and avian flu scares. The friend mentioned in the previous post suggested this idea. As a subject of their thermal scans and questionnaires, he felt that although "quite aggressive [the precautions were] not surprising given their recent spell with avian [H5N1] influenza."

Disparities in swine flu vaccine resources might also explain the differing responses. Rich nations have received criticism for reserving most of the world's supply of flu shots and if Japanese and Korean citizens lack the same access protective medications that Americans or Britons enjoy, health officials in Japan and Korea would need to reinforce other preventive measures to afford the same level of swine flu protection. The airport measures might compensate for insufficiencies elsewhere.

While the adequacy of any swine flu response remains difficult to predict I'm partial to the Korean and Japanese approach. They seem to realize that swine flu is nothing to sneeze at. With this mentality these countries have invested in preventive measures to protect the population. The United States and Britain on the other hand appear to rely on citizens to seek out flu shots and take more individualized precautions.

While skeptical that Heathrow and LAX will enhance swine flu precautions before flu season, I remain hopeful that the varied global approaches to swine flu prevention will work in concert to avoid an international catastrophe.

Please comment if you have other ideas why the major airports in London and Los Angeles seem to offer nonchalant resistance to the global pandemic.

Photo credit: huffingtonpost.com