You know... There's lots (like, LOTS. Gobs of stuff, sheaves, mountains of scary things) to be afraid of these days. Seems that the epidemic of this flu, however, is a lot scarier than many other threats.
Thing is, as others have mentioned, the average person is more likely to be hit by a car than killed by any communicable disease (true statistic, but I can't find a link to proof).
What is it that scares people like me so much when the word 'epidemic' or 'pandemic' is mentioned? Is it fear of an actual bacteria or virus? No, probably not. It's fear of the unknown, the undesirable, the misunderstood.
This new flu strain is, well.....New. People haven't studied it, we haven't figured out its migration patterns, we haven't gotten a good grasp of the thing. That's what's causing all the concern at this time, no?
I'm almost completely sure that in a few weeks when we've a better understanding of this thing, the fear level will go down. It's logic, right? The more we know about something, the less we don't know, and therefore the less we fear it. I mean, why do so many television shows have to portray villains as inscrutable and alien in the beginning? Answer is because the villains would be much less terrifying if the viewers knew everything about them and their motivations from the beginning of the series.
