N Revising pandemic plans-to be more flexible and more detailed-should wait for WHO leadership if national plans are not to diverge. Surveillance beyond influenza should be stepped up, and contingencies drawn up for the emergence or re-emergence of other novel and known pathogens. [22] but some countries attempted containment in Phases 5 and 6. Some countries even instituted a ''containment phase'' using case-finding and various measures such as isolation and antiviral treatment of ill suspected and confirmed cases, and quarantine of exposed persons with or without antiviral chemoprophylaxis, while others never attempted or quickly moved from resource-intensive containment to mitigation [22] . A preliminary evaluation of intensive containment undertaken in parts of the UK during its spring/summer wave of 2009 demonstrates how resource-and labour-intensive community containment could have been and also how even with a lot of resources the measures had to be abandoned [23] . It is now recognised that the phrase ''containment'' was unfortunate and potentially misleading since at best the actions were only mitigating impact [24] . This pandemic virus transmitted efficiently among children and at least one study has shown that school closures were associated with reduced population transmission when implemented early [21] . Closures appear to have stopped school outbreaks in western Japan and might have also mitigated impact initially on the local communities [25] . However, decisions on this intervention were contextually specific, dependent on feasibility and their potential downsides [26] . In Europe and the US the judgement was generally that proactive school closures would not be justified as a community mitigation intervention in the context of a perceived mild-to-moderate pandemic among the general population, and reserve plans for widespread closure have not been activated in most jurisdictions. However, local decisions were made to close schools in some areas as a response to prevent transmission and high attack rates among schoolchildren or simply where there was too much illness and absenteeism to sustain teaching [21, 27] .