The more I research Equine influenza, the more I actually agree with this.
When the news first broke and the headlines were "100 yards on lockdown", as someone who was not familiar with Equine influenza this genuinely led me to believe that this virus was the SARS equivalent for horses. However, Equine influenza seems to be more like a common cold/flu amongst horses (literally sniffles & coughing).
Now, I am all for the well-being of horses, but from what I'm reading, for a horse to potentially die from Equine influenza, it would effectively have to be untreated, non-vaccinated, away from humans and more than likely catch pneumonia before the virus can actually become life threatening to the horse, which isn't going to happen here...
It would be a bloody disappointment if Cheltenham was cancelled over this. Although, it would be more so ridiculous as I'm just comparing it to a situation like where my office would go into lockdown if someone caught a cold and was sneezing on the floor :highly_amused: