Firstly, I want to say I firmly believe that "fear" is much more contagious than any flu, and just as paralysing.
Diuqil, I think you are misquoting the article. It actually says the "common flu" - "kills mainly the young and the old".
What is concerning authorities is H1-N1 is killing healthy young people and adults, that it is a cross species strain which our bodies find harder to defend against, and it has broken out at the tail end of the flu season when medics expect the numbers catching the flu to be in decline.
The article you linked to concludes the common flu being "far deadlier" is based on the comparison between the total number of annual flu deaths versus the current very small number of H1-N1 deaths. It's a fair comment, and one that is relevant with the trend towards panic in some quarters. However, if nothing was done there is potential risk H1-N1 "could" become a very serious threat.
I saw an interview with a senior US health official yesterday and she said:
* Cross species flu strains are considered very dangerous, but are normally very difficult to catch.
* Once such a flu is proven to be passed from person to person like H1-N1 (rather than animal to person), the medical establishment becomes very concerned.
* From the US perspective her biggest concern was if H1-N1 were to combine with a flu virus that had the genetic skill to rapidly infect large populations, and the US had such a powerful common flu virus last year. This could easily occur if a person was exposed to both viruses at the same time.
* The above is why the authorities are trying to put a lid on H1-N1 fast.
* She did say though that the evidence of H1-N1's potential lethality was unknown at the moment, it is early days and they don't yet have the statistics to measure it. Some of the 5+% fatality rate figures coming out of Mexico were very concerning but not backed up by any facts, and unlikely.
* She said the threshold point for a real pandemic was 2%+ fatalities of those catching the virus i.e. 98% survive. This doesn't sound so bad but 2% was the fatality rate of the Spanish flu in 1918 which killed 50- 100 million people world-wide in 18 months. The common flu by contrast has a fatality rate of less than one tenth of 1%.
The other aspect to all this is there is now dispute about the 1918 pandemic deaths being just the Spanish flu. Antibiotics were not invented until circa 1942 and some medics are saying the bulk of the deaths were from infections and pneumonia that could have been mitigated with antibiotics and modern health care.
