Remember the dire warnings about AIDs? That all the hospitals would be filled with AIDs patients by now, and no one would be able to find medical care? Didn't happen here. It is happening in 3rd world countries, and it DID cross into heterosexual transmission, but predictions of mass swarming of hospitals did not pan out here. (edit to add-- I am not minimizing the AIDs crisis, but only to point out that some predictions were overly exaggerated. Here is US the drugs are available to most, and those who cannot afford them get them thru Medicaid. Not so easy in 3rd world countries, however, where orphans are mounting by the day as their parents die).

In an average year here about 30,000 die as a result of regular old flu cycles.

So I guess some of us get jaded about predictions. Y2K, never happened, but the panic did...I had to live thru that in my job.

So I don't have a clue if this H1N1 thing will blossom here as predicted, or if it will be another dud.