Sunfish - agree with you 100%.
It seems many people posting here and in fact most of the general public do not understand the term Pandemic.
I am not a medical person however primarily I work internationally with health care professionals, particularly epidemiologists specialising in primary health care. Through this I have gained a good understanding of the impact of what many call a simple flu virus. It is not the severity of the disease, it is the number of cases that result, and also the impact of secondary ARI's occuring in people with compromised immune systems and those living in less than ideal conditions e.g. nursing homes, crowded conditions, and those who for reasons of poverty / lack of good nutrition lack a strong constitution and ability to fight off "simple" viral infections.
The greatest killer in any of the flu pandemics has been the secondary bacterial infections such as pneumonia and other ARI's - not the flu itself.
The fact that the largest number deaths occur in Third World countries is a result of a lack of facilities to treat the sick and several of the reasons I list in the third paragraph. However this does not mean we (as in First World nations) will not feel the impact.
Hopefully this outbreak will not result in a full on pandemic will the resultant economic impact, however time will tell if this will pass quickly or mutate to provide subsequent waves of further outbreaks.