While it looks like our public health officials have gotten the jump on this and there are already researchers in the US, the UK and France working on a vaccine I find it kinda disturbing the number of people who are dismissing this as a complete media invention. Yes there have been a number of overreactions including calls to close the border with Mexico, school districts closing down with no evidence any of their students have it, what Egypt proposed and China banning pork imports from the US. That is somewhat troubling but that doesn't mean you should take the position that 2009 H1N1 was completely harmless and never posed any danger. All along what made 2009 H1N1 dangerous was its potential. Scientists and medical researchers weren't concerned because it had already killed millions (after a virus hits that point there isn't much you can do except ride it out) they were concerned because if things played out a certain way this virus could kill millions. We have well funded agencies like the CDC to try and stay ahead of these things and as such they are always concerning themselves with what things could do. Think about it like this; some people make a big deal about how 38,000 people die in the US from the so-called "regular" flu every year. They wonder, given that figure, why 2009 H1N1 is having such a big deal made about it? The reason is that the 38,000 is an expected figure within predicted ranges from a strain that is rather well controlled. Yes that means they do expect 35-40 thousand people will die from it but the key is that they absolutely don't expect 350-450,000 to die from it. 2009 H1N1, on the other hand, is a novel virus and if it was to get to the point that 38,000 people in the US were dead from it we'd be only at the tip of the iceberg in terms of what havoc it might wreak. It would certainly find pools of people in the population with less resistance than usual and it might nearly wipe them out. It also might mutate into a more virulent form.
Bottom line is that when you are dealing with a novel strain of a contagious virus you should not let it get to the point that it is outstripping existing strains in the number of deaths. By then it's probably too late to much of anything about it.
