Reply #4: er... that's what the WHO alert level 5 means. imminent pandemic.

[enki23]

and it is, quite literally, true. we are on the cusp of a pandemic flu against which very few people have immunity. this is one of those cases where the scoffers are, i'm afraid to say, more obnoxious than the fearmongers. this may well end up being a relatively small issue in spite of the people who have already died.

in any case, this is very real, and potentially very serious. some of the previous pandemic flu outbreaks also started with a wave of relatively mild disease. but it spread from person to person, and so around the world, and it came back deadlier. and even if it ends up being no worse than seasonal flu, it would still be expected to kill 30+ thousand people in the united states alone. not to mention all the lost productivity, the overtaxed hospitals and public health infrastructure. and because of its genetic novelty, we would expect it to be much more widespread, since we'd expect much less natural immunity. it may well be that twice as many people get it as seasonal flu, and many of them at nearly the same time. then it would be, all else equal, expected to kill upward of 60+ thousand americans. that's just here. it's not going to be the precursor to armageddon, but it also is not a fucking joke.

i wish people would think for a moment before making crass statements like the original post, and many of the comments i've seen here. remember, you're scoffing over the graves of quite a number of people already. and that's just in a relatively short time at what may only be the very beginning of this disease's course. in the future... well, the worse this gets, the bigger the assholes your present selves would become.