You leave out all the bad news. You forgot to note that it took 7-10 DAYS for a ship to cross the Atlantic and almost a month to get to parts of Asia. Today it takes under 24 hours. You forget to note that most of america was rural in 1918, today its urban. You forget to note that there is no vacine for avian flue, that it has a long incubation period so people can travel anywhere in the world infected before anyone knows, and that it kills in days, not the months necessary to produce the tens of millions of doses of any drug that is found to be effective.
You forget that people cannot live in their homes for weeks at a time, as most could and did in the fall of 1918. Then you have to factor in the barbarian. How will Americans react if told to stray home for weeks and they begin to run out of food or have sick or dead in their homes? I suspect not well.
Now add in wide open borders and a wealth of liberal activist lawyers who will immediately try to undermine all effective meansures in court and you have the potential for a worse outbreak.
You make some good points. true the USA will not be impacted as much by the bird flu as the rest of the world in terms of deaths. Our health system is first rate but can it withstand an onslaught of millions of cases? We do not have the ventilators nor the beds to care for them. Also most of our goods (thanks to the shortsighted CEO's of the world.) come from those very 3rd world nations that will be impacted the most. Our inventories will be stretched and our standard of living will decrease for a time. Will America be able to have patience during the flu season? What happens if the Bird flu runs very hot in the Middle east and the wells stop pumping or in South America, Africa, Russia? Oil at $100 a barrel?. Then also you have millions of illegal Aliens streaming across the border each one coming from a very poor health care system. These people would come seeking help in our hospitals and at the same time carrying the virus. But like you said we should not panic but we should prepare. This goes for governments (federal/state/and local),companies (meet labor req./shipping and production problems and families (enough food/gas/medication/disinfecting etc).