According the recent numbers released by the CDC, about 47 million people had the swine (H1N1) flu and about 9,820 people died from it.  My math suggests that the chance of dying from this terrible disease stands at about 1 in 4786, or 0.002% chance of dying if you caught the flu.  Keep in mind that they stopped testing for the H1N1 in the summer, so these stats are unreliable guesses, but based on the official numbers I would call this a mild disease.  So much for the panic.  Also did you see the news about Tamiflu and how it has no benefit in keeping people out of the hospital for flu complications.