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@TheCatMan
Ok, this thread seems to have been hijacked... But, if we're going to get all serious about it, I think we could all do well to bear in mind that 'normal' influenza kills shitloads of people every year. 30,000+ per annum on average in America alone and up to 12,000 per annum in the UK .
So yes, a pandemic will result in more deaths, but we aren't working from a zero baseline to start with. Also its easy to be scared by the numbers, 10s of millions dead sounds staggering but that is from a global population of approx. 6.8 billion., so even if 68 million people die from a pandemic - that represents 0.1% of the global population or 1 in 1000. The 68 million figure is just an illustration - my understanding is that the pandemics in the 2nd half of the 20th century saw much much lower numbers of deaths. It is also likely that those societies with lower standards of healthcare provision and general nutrition will suffer relatively higher death rates. Callous I know but its the reason people in parts of the world regularly die from diseases we consider minor inconveniences (pardon the pun) like diarrhoea. If you live in the UK and you get flu which then results in a chest infection you get given antibiotics. In other parts of the world that isn't guaranteed (and its shocking indicment on modern society that many life saving drugs are not globally available, primarily due to cost in numerous cases).
So, even if there is a pandemic, the probability that an individual reading this will die as a result is very small indeed.
I could just be telling porkies of course.