It certainly is. There is a common and false belief floating around that past performance is a guarantee of future results. 1970s Swine flu turned out to be nothing, H5N1 didn't hit, SARS was contained so we are safe.
Absurd. The threat is always there. Infuenza A is a mutation machine. The genetic tumblers stop in the right position and we are right where we were in 1918.
PLoS has another contribution today:
First estimation of direct H1N1pdm virulenceFrom reported non consolidated data from Mauritius and New Caledonia
We provide rough estimates of direct lethality from ARDS due to H1N1pdm from two independent sources of data, one from New Caledonia where 30,000 infections are assumed to have occured and 3 deaths reported to be attributable directly to the pandemic virus.
Another source is Mauritius where 70,000 infections are estimated to have occured, and 7 reported death from ARDS (5 of them are currently confirmed).
These surveillance data allows for first estimation of direct lethality due to H1N1pdm to be 1 per 10,000 infections, about 100 times more than regular seasonal influenza.
That would mean roughly 3-4 million deaths in the United States.
It has been said around 35,000 people die in the USA alone every year due to the flu. If this H1N1 strain, made up of Swine/Avian/and 2 DIFFERENT strains of human flu is around 100 times more lethal, then we are looking ata potential death toll of 3,500,000 dead in the United States alone!