Just going to chime in with a slightly tangential issue. It's sad to see that many threads like this are being suppressed on HN (probably just from lack of interest). I have to use the HN search tool to find them.

From what I can tell, there are lots of smug "it's just the flu" takes prevalent in the mainstream of HN commentary.

Sad, because I think there is lots of interesting discussion that could be happening around various facets of this outbreak.