while the linked article is just a smidgen of an insight into the incredibly detailed analysis that ID professionals put into this - and every other - pandemic, each and every day...indeed for decades...yet you feel confident in accusing them of overlooking critical aspects they should have attended to. Such talk immediately strikes me as hubris...that's what I'm saying.
BTW, not sure if you scanned the link, but it shows the considerable 'delta' between H1N1 (of which there's more than one), and the COVID-19 viruses, so you need to be careful trying to compare them, and/or the steps taken to combat them.
Bottom line for me...TRUST the folks that do this for a living...and have had success beating pathogens in the past.