Well, here's one way to respond to the flu threat

From an organization holding a conference I plan to attend in Beijing starting tomorrow,  whose sessions have been scheduled for a government-run meeting site:

Change of Venue
Due to the concerns of the H1N1 virus, the Chinese government has banned gatherings of groups larger than 50 people at all government facilities. Due to this new circumstance, we are no longer able to host the forum at the [xxxxx]. We have now changed the venue to the [xxxx] Hotel. The schedule of the forum will remain the same, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

I have no independent information about whether, when, by whom, and with what geographic extent such an order might have been issued. And of course it's hardly the first time I've heard of a last-minute change of site (or cancellation) for a long-scheduled gathering in China, for reasons having nothing to do with flu.

Whatever the back story here, to me the announcement is an interesting historical document concerning the management of public opinion in China during the current flu episode -- and the success of the government in making any measure, no matter how hazily connected to systematic public health reasoning, seem part of a resolute effort to protect the Chinese people against lax standards elsewhere, notably including the United States. No other countries are imposing quarantine rules as strict as China's? So much more to the credit of the government protecting us here!! Yes, Americans too are familiar with such "security theater" -- just not when it comes to flu. And I can't help remembering that in recent hours I passed through airports in Kunming and Beijing, "government facilities" in both cases, where tens of thousands of people were gathered. So far we all survived.