Here is an article in Wired by Bruce Sterling from January of 2004. Perhaps it will calm some peoples fears of a flu pandemic to remember a little disease called SARS:

If SARS had become pandemic, we’d be living in a deeply afflicted world now, a place where a kiss, a sneeze, or even a dirty doorknob could kill you. Tens of millions would be dead. Instead, the syndrome killed a mere 774 people, quashed by a fast-moving international medical network.

Wired.