May 5 AP article - link below:

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With Mexico saying the worst may be over and the new H1N1 virus starting to look more like a seasonal flu strain in the United States and elsewhere, critics are going to start asking if public health officials overreacted to the outbreak.

Since the new swine flu virus was first identified two weeks ago in two children in Texas and California, the World Health Organization pushed its pandemic alert level from a three to a five, meaning a pandemic is imminent.

Mexico closed schools, stopped public events and took a big hit to tourism. The U.S. government mobilized 25 percent of its stockpile of antiviral drugs and started work on a vaccine against the new strain.

But the death toll is being rolled back as Mexican officials realize it will be impossible to know if long-buried or cremated victims died of H1N1 swine flu. And while the infection is spreading rapidly across the United States, it appears to be no worse than seasonal flu.

Scientists who study flu say the coordinated, global response was appropriate.

"If it doesn't become more virulent, first of all, many people will heave a great sigh of relief," said Dr. Scott Lillibridge, who helped set up the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Program and who is now at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston.

But Lillibridge echoes what the WHO and CDC have been saying: viruses mutate and change all the time and it is too early to say how bad this virus really is.

"We are only a few days into a major international mobilization for an outbreak that could continue months into the future," Lillibridge said in a telephone interview.

The U.S. government has been preparing for this scenario for years.

One of the messages that has come up repeatedly is that the 1918 pandemic, cited as the worst-case scenario because it killed upwards of 40 million people, started with a mild arrival of a new virus, now identified as H1N1, in the spring.

It disappeared over the summer, but roared back with a vengeance in August.

REPEATING HISTORY

"Will there be later disease, and if so, will it be more severe?" CDC acting director Dr. Richard Besser asked on Monday.

"There is no doubt in my mind that CDC, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Health and Human Services Department will use the lull to get ready," said risk communications consultant Peter Sandman, who has taken a special interest in pandemic flu.

"They will stay focused on this problem. They will continue to get ready for a possible pandemic in the fall."

Many public health experts also remember the 1976 swine flu outbreak that wasn't.

Manufacturers raced to make a vaccine and 40 million Americans were vaccinated amid a monster public relations campaign. But the flu never spread.

"One big difference between then and now was that when the swine flu was detected in 1976, it was found at a single military installation in Ft. Dix, New Jersey," said Dr. Harvey Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine and author of "The Epidemic that Never Was."

"In the ensuing weeks and months it was not detected elsewhere -- not elsewhere in New Jersey, not elsewhere in the United States, not elsewhere in the rest of the world."

Worse yet, some people developed a rare neurological reaction to the vaccine called Guillain-Barre syndrome. Even now, a considerable minority of people believe that vaccines are harmful.

In contrast, said Fineberg, this virus spread globally in a matter of weeks, carried by holidaymakers and jet travel, and has shown it can be transmitted from one person to another.

"Last week the lesson is we got lucky," said Sandman. "We have no reason to think we will stay lucky."

He hopes the alarm bells will continue to ring, at an appropriate level.

"I just hope the government is more worried about the public being caught with its pants down than the government being called fearmongerers," Sandman said.

Fineberg agreed. "One thing we have learned about flu is we should not be surprised by anything," he said.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox)

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE54418Q20090505?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=10528

Albert wrote: No offense to any government workers here, but you really can't trust the government these days.   Bottom line, this thing is not over until we get through next winter, period.   The WHO is getting people to lower their guards, and it is way too early for that still.

I think much of their decision making is economics (flu bad for the economy).   I agree with you Albert, we don't know until we see what happens during the winter. 

It could in fact stay mild.  Since H5N1 seems stable, this could end the threat of "The Next Pandemic" for the next few decades, which works for me.  H5N1 might make the jump to humans in another 40 years from now like how the swine flu did after first appearing in 1976, but we won't be around for that one.  Maybe we will be calling it quits around here in another 5 or 6 months from now if this stays mild.   I'm looking forward to ending the pandemic threat once and for all.    

Great News if this whole thing ends. I will have all this food to donate to the food bank, which is great! I will keep my dry food for any emergency...never know flood, tornado, blizzard, and anything else.

Let us pray it goes away! I do not want to SIP or worry my child may die.

     There is a far greater danger than the H1N1 influenza A virus the is the threatening H5N1 bird flu virus & don;t forget about SARS which may come back. Another thing to worry about is when the bird flu virus mutates together with the H1N1 virus. The new virus will be more infectious to humans or transmitted human to human & a killer virus with a high mortality rate. Although the bird flu is endemic to south east asia and have fewer human infection compared to the H1N1 virus its mortality rate is beyond 40%. So if 10 milion people were infected by the new virus about 4m people will die of the new disease. All outbreaks should then be treated prompyly  especially the influenza A virus that is capable of constant mutation.  

FluMom wrote: Great News if this whole thing ends. I will have all this food to donate to the food bank, which is great! I will keep my dry food for any emergency...never know flood, tornado, blizzard, and anything else. Let us pray it goes away! I do not want to SIP or worry my child may die.

i would have more faith in the story if the critics were identified .  They say this and they say that .   Who they .But the world health has offered their names and names of scientists and they are based on research. 

   If it fizzles out I'll just keep prepping as before. This isn't a one time deal for me now. Since I started prepping and hanging out with my fellow AFTers on a regular basis, my whole attitude has changed. I've amassed a lot of preps in the past couple of years, and now even my backpack (which I carry everywhere) has a comprehensive first aid kit, two flashlights, lighters and spare fuel, red LED signal light, bug repellent, sunscreen, pepper spray, two multi-tools, distress whistle, wet wipes, hand sanitizer, two N95 masks, and nitrile gloves. Even my keyring is a combined multi-tool and flashlight
  I look at the world and I see all kinds of things that could derail the cozy lifestyle so many think is untouchable. Terrorists getting  their hands on nukes and hitting a city (or unleashing an EMP attack), earthquake, wildfires, famine, seemingly unstoppable population growth, climate change - the list is awful long if you choose to accept that this period of unprecedented peace and stability is unusual for us as a species. Something will come along to shake us up and when it does I want to be prepared for my family's sake, because I think there are things out there too big for any government to fix, and a major pandemic is just one of them. Despite everything though, I actually feel safer these days because I know I'd be in a much better position to survive than most, both mentally and in the way I've prepped.