Flu

Is the Swine Flu really an epidemic? So far only 1,000 people have been infected and only a handful dead. Every human life is sacred and each life taken is a huge loss.
But in today's day and age when the world is so easily connected the spread of such a flu could have been rapid and resulted in an epidemic of mammoth proportions. Some estimates say that if the Spanish flu epidemic in early 1900s is taken as a criteria, the flu this time around can claim more than 150 million people. Now that is a pandemic. However, so far, touch wood, only around 1,000 have been reported infected when potentially millions could have been. So, is this really an epidemic or this is just being too safe than sorry. If this epidemic scare shuts down countries, aborts trade and exchange of goods, stops people movement on business, that would be a epidemic of mammoth proportion as this can result in potentially billions of dollars of economic impact. Theoretically, flu might not claim a lot of lives but the economic impact it can cause might make it a huge epidemic.