The great swine flu pandemonium of 2009 confirmed the emergence of a parallel universe of official public health increasingly remote from real-world

from Spiked:
Meanwhile, in the world of Pandemic Fantasy Flu, a new virus threatens a global pestilence, from which everyone is in danger. Projected death rates in the UK started at 65,000 and were reduced to 19,000; the most optimistic scenario was around 3,000 deaths (the total so far is around 300, much less than die every year from seasonal flu). When the first wave, last summer, was conspicuously mild, we were on alert for a devastating second wave in the autumn, which stubbornly refused to appear. Now, we are being warned to be vigilant in case the virus mutates and becomes virulent in the spring.