Swine flu

So I was going to (and might still) write a blog post about the effects of the "regular" flu and then compare that to the "swine" flu.

I haven't really seen a justification for why this flu is so feared versus a "regular" flu. I could imagine a regular flu spreading to many countries very quickly.

Luckily, fark had this headline "Swine flu death toll: 150. Regular flu death toll: 13,000. But don't let that stop the fearmongering panic" and a link to this cnn article. One person has died though, so the article is a bit dated. The central argument is still correct though.

Right now, I believe that if we tracked a "regular" flu, we would be able to get ourselves into a panic frenzy. We don't have vaccines for the "regular" flu either, a couple of years ago they totally guessed wrong on which one would be dominant in the United States and everyone's flu shot was basically worthless.

I hope "swine" flu stays how its been, it seems to be a case of the flu, that is doing its normal thing.

Update:
More data from Next Big Future about normal flu deaths.