Who knew in advance it wouldn't work?
Influenza changes from year to year. Thus it is somewhat silly to stockpile a product to combat influenza for a period of time. Yesterday the government release a large fraction of the stockpile. Now, since there haven’t been deaths, what happens when the stockpile is gone and the real thing comes along. If they are thinking it will help, then why release the stockpile now, no deaths.
There are several problems with all of this. It just seems strange to me, the thinking behind all this.