For example, to me, the WHO taking until ~March 12 to call this a pandemic*, when the informed amateurs I listen to were all pretty convinced that this will be pretty bad since at least early March, is at least some evidence that trusting informed amateurs has some value over entirely trusting people usually perceived as experts.
Also, predicting that something will be pretty bad or will be a pandemic is not the same as saying it is now a pandemic. When did it become a pandemic according to the WHO’s definition?
Dr Fukuda: An easy way to think about pandemic – and actually a way I have some times described in the past – is to say: a pandemic is a global outbreak. Then you might ask yourself: “What is a global outbreak”? Global outbreak means that we see both spread of the agent – and in this case we see this new A(H1N1) virus to most parts of the world – and then we see disease activities in addition to the spread of the virus. Right now, it would be fair to say that we have an evolving situation in which a new influenza virus is clearly spreading, but it has not reached all parts of the world and it has not established community activity in all parts of the world. It is quite possible that it will continue to spread and it will establish itself in many other countries and multiple regions, at which time it will be fair to call it a pandemic at that point. But right now, we are really in the early part of the evolution of the spread of this virus and we will see where it goes.
Also, predicting that something will be pretty bad or will be a pandemic is not the same as saying it is now a pandemic. When did it become a pandemic according to the WHO’s definition?
Expanding a quote I found on the wiki page in the transcript here from 2009:
But see also WHO says it no longer uses ‘pandemic’ category, but virus still emergency from February 24, 2020.