bathiu
Refugee
The reaction people are having is because its something new in humans, while it does have the potential to mutate quickly because of its mix of elements from a number viruses, we need to keep this in perspective. More than 37,000 people are killed by the regular flu every year, something no one really fears and just takes as a part of daily life, so far we have 160 or so fatalities in Mexico from this flu. And thus far it appears to be less virulent in the US.
and that's 37k of deaths in US only, it's around 1mln every year worldwide. SARS killed around 800 people and 'birds flu' around 300, of course every single death is tragic, but compared to the number of people killed by a regular flu, it's a really "small" number.
Don't get me wrong, being carefull etc is always a good thing, but as powerhour24 said, we all need to keep this in perspective.