[Goose]

It IS a good post, but you have to remove the much under-appreciated George W. Bush from the President's list. Back in 2005, he read John Berry's book about the 1918 pandemic, became alarmed at the state of the unpreparedness of the US, and proposed and implemented a fairly comprehensive plan for response. Here's the link, from ABC News, not one of his admirers. Given the state of news reporting in 2005, I doubt the NYT even gave the speech front section coverage.

Evidently, Bush's plan was completely ignored by both subsequent Administrations, and fell into disuse.

I would still leave Bush in my list. That he was aware of the issues and did in fact to create a response plan is very much to his credit. If that plan would have generated actionable data sooner then possibly he would have acted sooner. He also may have been a man who was more disposed toward action than other presidents. However reading a book wouldn't remove his reliance on the experts that work for him or make him an expert on epidemics. He isn't going to read detailed reports on respiratory diseases per person in the US every day, or even every week. Nor should he. He has "people" for that. They would have to come to him and forcefully recommend action. Until they did that, nothing would happen. This is not saying it would have been a failing on these President's part. That is just how the system works and kind of has to work. You better hope you have good people working for you that you trust, who have good judgement and who are willing to take the career risks necessary to make correct, timely, and clear recommendations.
An example of this is that Angela Merlel greatly benefited because the State Of Bavaria health service jumped right on the "hot spots" in their state and made an aggressive set of reports outlining what they found. Lots of credit for the German response has to go to them.

[Goose]

It IS a good post, but you have to remove the much under-appreciated George W. Bush from the President's list. Back in 2005, he read John Berry's book about the 1918 pandemic, became alarmed at the state of the unpreparedness of the US, and proposed and implemented a fairly comprehensive plan for response. Here's the link, from ABC News, not one of his admirers. Given the state of news reporting in 2005, I doubt the NYT even gave the speech front section coverage.

Evidently, Bush's plan was completely ignored by both subsequent Administrations, and fell into disuse.

I would still leave Bush in my list. That he was aware of the issues and did in fact to create a response plan is very much to his credit. If that plan would have generated actionable data sooner then possibly he would have acted sooner. He also may have been a man who was more disposed toward action than other presidents. However reading a book wouldn't remove his reliance on the experts that work for him or make him an expert on epidemics. He isn't going to read detailed reports on respiratory diseases per person in the US every day, or even every week. Nor should he. He has "people" for that. They would have to come to him and forcefully recommend action. Until they did that, nothing would happen. This is not saying it would have been a failing on these President's part. That is just how the system works and kind of has to work. You better hope you have good people working for you that you trust, who have good judgement and who are willing to take the career risks necessary to make correct, timely, and clear recommendations.
An example of this is that Angela Merlel greatly benefited because the State Of Bavaria health service jumped right on the "hot spots" in their state and made an aggressive set of reports outlining what they found. Lots of credit for the German response has to go to them.