Although we have provided examples from Australia, we believe our arguments will have relevance for many other countries. 'One size fits all', where authorities have only one response strategy for viruses with different infection rates and case fatality ratios, is not an appropriate response to pandemic preparedness. Revised pandemic plans should include different responses for different pandemic severities [57] . All areas of pandemic planning need to be re-examined, but perhaps by alternative processes to those that led to current plans. Certainly, new evidence about the practical difficulties and/or ineffectiveness of control measures, such as border control and school closures, needs to be considered seriously. The inadequacy of many plans has recently been publicly acknowledged by the head of the WHO's global influenza programme. Speaking at a United Kingdom Health Protection Agency conference on the international response to the H1N1 pandemic, Dr Sylvie Briand is reported to have said that the containment strategy during the last pandemic was 'not feasible' and that guidelines might have to be overhauled [58] . We believe this is sound advice.