Well, being ever the radical, I remain wholly unconcerned about the H1N1 variant.
The Southern Hemisphere has gone through their flu season already but the Northern Hemisphere, where we are located, is just entering it. Ok, fair enough. Currently the H1N1 mortality sits in the ballpark of 5000 cases worldwide. I won't bother linking the CDC website again, but the annual mortality from regular, garden variety flu and related complications (I assume those 5000 deaths attributed to H1N1 can be described as "flu and related complications" as well) in the US alone is 36000. I'm too lazy to look for worldwide figures on "flu" that isn't H1N1 but I'd guess if the rate is that high in the US, a first world country, it will be higher in poorer countries.
Yes, there are individuals at risk who should be concerned. Yes, it is concerning that H1N1 seems to have some greater impacts on younger folks rather than just knocking off geezers. At the same time, and realizing this is wholly relevant to many here, younger kids means under 5 for high risk. Otherwise they aren't in the high risk category (6-18 y.o.). I also suspect that much of the "unusual" mortality cases will tend to have complications, as the young hockey player in Canada (10 y.o.) did - asthma.
Old flu is boring, common and lethal. H1N1 is a "new" variety of the flu and thankfully from the media's perspective, it kills some people outside the norm of what is expected, ergo it becomes big news. Couple that with a shortage of vaccine, panic in the clinics handing it out and the media are rubbing their hands together with glee.
I don't have the flu yet but won't be surprised if I get it. Knock on wood I hope it doesn't do anything serious but I'm not about to start worrying about what ifs at this point.
I know I and 99.99% of people will be fine, what scares me is if the avian/swine/human death strain ever happens...I think the failures of getting out vaccine and people not getting sick is pretty damn scary...no?
At the risk of pushing this south, you can't trust the pharmaceutical companies anyway, right?
The true complication is you can't pump out that much stuff (vaccine) that fast anyway. You still need to go through the testing and all the regulatory procedures. This is a recombinant variety of the regular flu, so you can't just easily dump some identical vaccine out there. It won't work and if you modify it haphazardly without the testing it could be worse than the disease. Manufacturing processes coupled with regulatory processes = slow.
If that evil death strain ever comes out, we're all screwed anyway, much as if Iran fires off a bunch of nukes. I grew up living under that spectre with the cold war through the 70s. I'm not suggesting we can ignore it but practically speaking there really isn't anything we can do about it either.
Do what you can to keep your family safe, but be realistic is my viewpoint. I'd never suggest folks not wash their hands, cough into their sleeves or not use hand sanitizer. But has the rate of infection fallen by a measurable percentage? I seriously doubt it but someone's making a boatload off the high profile nature of this flu relative to its mortality rate. More than one someone. And knocking on wood doesn't hurt either