And I understand being smart about taking steps to avoid it, but overall, I believe this will be ultimately known as the Great Swine Flu Hysteria of ’09.

If we only remember this as hysteria, then everyone did their job.

You’re right that it’s not a particularly virulent or deadly strain—the problem is just that nobody has immunity. But even a boring, everyday flu kills thousands of people, and that’s when we keep it from sweeping through the entire population by immunizing lots of people. If it really does infect a significant chunk of the population, we’re certainly talking about thousands of deaths among children and the elderly. The way to head off all of those deaths (and the huge containment costs) is to shut down transmission of the virus early on.

Now, whether these measures actually achieve that is another issue.

It’s affecting ‘healthy’ people 20-40. Hmm, since it’s new, it would make sense that no one would have built up a resistence to it.

What’s worrisome is that it seemed to be killing healthy people 20-40. Usually, it’s children and the elderly who die of the flu. If young adults are dying, that suggests something different is happening. Perhaps a “cytokine storm” – where your own immune system ends up killing you by overreacting. This tends to happen among the young and healthy, because they have the strongest immune systems.

At this point, it’s probably too soon to say if that’s happening. The news coming out of Mexico is kind of confused and may be unreliable.

I believe this will be ultimately known as the Great Swine Flu Hysteria of ’09.

Could be, but it’s way too early to say. This is H1N1, just like the “Spanish flu.” (Which might actually be from Kansas, but never mind.) The Spanish flu first appeared in spring, and seemed relatively mild. It came back in the fall, and was much worse. That’s when most of the deaths occurred.

Flu viruses mutate rapidly, and I think that’s what they’re worried about, as much as anything.

against a LHP.