Going back to your earlier comment about mortality, from what I have read about swine flu is that it is not significantly more virulent than seasonal flu. Yet a large number of people globally die from seasonal flu every year. What seems to be unspoken about why there is so much concern about swine flu is that it is an unknown. Its seemingly high incidence among young people is different from seasonal flu. Moreover, its origin is seemingly from a combination of flus that are normally present in a number of different species of animal and that raises concerns about its ability to mutate into something perhaps more virulent.

This is not to say that I believe swine flu is more important than, say, global poverty but (a) we (as a country) get a more direct benefit from investing in minimisation and (b) it is more tractable.