Time & Perspective Quote by Margaret Chan

A quiet flex of modernity sits inside Chan's warning: we can now watch a pandemic move the way we watch weather, markets, or war footage - live, granular, and impossible to unsee. The line isn't just celebrating scientific progress; it's tightening accountability. Real-time tracking turns outbreak response from a matter of hindsight into a test of competence under a spotlight. If you can see it coming, you can't plead surprise when hospitals buckle or supply chains snap.

The second sentence punctures any techno-optimism. Influenza is framed as a slippery adversary: rapid mutation, "unpredictable behaviour". That phrasing matters because it immunizes public health messaging against the demand for certainty. Chan is teaching the audience how to tolerate ambiguity without sliding into denial. It's also a hedge against politicized blame: if the virus is structurally unpredictable, then changing guidance isn't necessarily incompetence - it's adaptation.

Contextually, this is the voice of an institution (the global public health apparatus) trying to communicate two things at once: the unprecedented capacity of surveillance networks, labs, and reporting systems, and the enduring limits of control. The subtext is a plea for humility and cooperation: data can travel faster than bureaucracy, but viruses can still outrun both. Chan's intent is to prime governments and publics for decisions made with incomplete information, where speed matters, but overconfidence kills.