Well, I think it's worthwhile to think about this. The general opinion among experts seems to be that it's probably a matter of "when" not "if."

The SARS outbreak affected a lot of Asian countries, and hit some regions in Canada as well. That's a product of international air travel as much as anything. But we got a rude awakening, and a fair amount of national and local preps have been put in place as a result.

I don't know what sort of preps you are seeing in the USA.

I know that a lot of companies up here have been planning how they will keep business going with 40% of the workforce absent. And I recall getting a mail-out poster from the local health authority, advising people how to prepare for a pandemic. Much of it is the standard stuff, but it gets people thinking (I hope).

The worst thing is, a pandemic will come in waves, possibly over a 6-month period IIRC. It's hard to bug-in for 6 months, maintaining perfect isolation, in any realistic way.