From the information available so far it seems that it is no more or less serious than any other flu strain. Yet it is featured on virtually every news report. Why?
The government simply want to keep things running, and not have half the population calling in sick, they would loose billions a day, so they want to keep everyone healthy by overreacting, which means they will loose less money.
The big deal about swine flu is that's it's never shown up before, so it's unpredictable. So far it hasn't proved to be any more dangerous that other strains, but no one is sure yet if it'll stay that way. People panic about stuff they don't know and can't predict.
