Administration officials keep lying to cover Bush's and their own incompetence

So, it seems like not every country is in as bad shape as we are in preparedness measures to fight an eventual bird flu pandemic:

Canada has one of the most enviable national pandemic plans in place, with stockpiles of the coveted antiviral drug Tamiflu and an action plan among provincial and federal health officials. Having learned from the SARS epidemic, which claimed 44 lives in Toronto in 2003 and cost the city $1 billion in lost tourism, Canada is ahead in such preparations.

See, some politicians actually do learn from past history and mistakes. Not Bush though. He spends his time bike riding and cutting branches in his ranch. God only knows what the hell he does all day long in his office.

But Prime Minister Paul Martin said the developed nations have an obligation to the poorer ones to share pandemic plans, influenza testing and any drugs that might ward off a global tragedy caused by a mutant strain of H5N1 avian flu, which has already killed dozens of people in Asia.
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As the conference prepared to convene — with Canada having said it would back an anticipated proposal by Mexico calling on wealthier nations to put aside 10 percent of their flu vaccines and future drugs to fight a pandemic for poorer nations — European health officials met in Copenhagen to review that continent's readiness.

How smart would that be? We can have millions of doses of vaccines, but if the pandemic takes over large swaths of Asia, Africa, and South America, there will be no safe haven, because of the ease of spread of the disease. Now let's see what argument the Bush administration puts forth to try and stop this plan from ever being implemented.

This CNN article was also interesting:

As the scare over bird flu intensifies, Europe and Asia are ordering clampdowns on the movements of birds and people.

Hong Kong's border with China, one of Asia's busiest, might be sealed if the deadly H5N1 bird flu starts spreading from human to human, according to the South China Morning Post newspaper.

The H5N1 strain first surfaced in Hong Kong in 1997, then re-emerged in 2003 in South Korea, before spreading to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Russia and Europe.

Hong Kong has been a hotbed of virus alerts in recent years, including the outbreak of the SARS disease in 2003, which killed almost 300 people there. The H5N1 bird flu strain also infected 18 people in Hong Kong in 1997, six of whom died.

Consequently, Hong Kong's entire poultry population, estimated at around 1.5 million birds, was destroyed within three days. This is thought to have averted a pandemic.

What is it with Hong Kong? Don't they have any sanitary regulations in place, given the fact that all these new diseases seems to originate there?