But they hurt their credibility with the public by using this terminology. They won't be taken as seriously when a real epidemic comes along.
I think you are confused by the terminology.
Pandemic: A sudden outbreak that becomes very widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or the world.
Clearly this flu is at a pandemic stage.
Epidemic: A sudden severe outbreak within a region or a group
This flu also meet the definition of epidemic. I don’t understand what you mean by a real epidemic. This is already a real epidemic, and there isn’t any dispute over the use of that term.
The flu can be very dangerous. around 20-30,000 people die of the flu in the US each year. That doesn’t mean that each person who gets the flu is in mortal danger, only that it is dangerous to society as a whole. With this flu, there is limited immunity in the general population, which means a greater number of people are susceptible to becoming ill. Put that together with the fact that flu viruses mutate quickly and can become very virulent, and there is a real risk to this.
H1N1 has a history of killing as many as 100 million people, so we already know the potential to become virulent is there. There were some young people in 1918 who were completely healthy when they woke up in the morning that died by the next day. Right now, the flu is no where close to being this dangerous. It probably won’t become as dangerous as the 1918 virus, and if it does, we have far more knowledge and ability to treat it.
They are not trying to panic people, only to inform them on the progression of this disease. It is very important to medical professionals and first responders such as myself to have this information, so that we can make the proper determinations about care for those who are ill.
China is a perfect example of taking this precaution way too far (IMO). They are unlikely to prevent this flu from entering their country, yet actually holding people against their will. Comparatively, the US is acting in a very responsible way. We all have a choice of how much risk we want to take with respect to this virus. As long as that doesn’t change, there is nothing wrong with using the appropriate medical terminology to describe this flu.