Reply #4: Punked? No

[gratuitous]

Disinformed and misinformed? Almost certainly.

The best public health estimates are that H1N1 influenza will reach pandemic proportions. That is, it will infect a number of folks all over the country. However, the H1N1 flu is not terribly bad. The most susceptible people will be the young and the old and those with compromised immune systems. If you're between the ages of 10 and 60 and in relatively good health without respiratory problems, you'll probably be okay, even if you do catch the flu. The main danger of the flu will be its communicability, and its ease of transmission from person to person.

And, as you say, mutations and variants of the H1N1 virus will almost certainly be more virulent. Better to be prepared and practice our public health measures with H1N1, with the stakes a little lower, than be thrown into a public panic when one of its more deadly descendants comes along. Just because the authorities can't predict down to the last sniffle every eventuality is no reason not to put best practices into place.