2009 H1N1 was never about total mortality, just the demographics. Seasonal flu tends to hit old people hardest in the mortality stats. Younger people died from H1N1. During the peak there were a bunch of kids in the ICU with it, far more than were typical.
THAT was the scare. USually kids get flu at school and do fine, it's scary to think of your sweet 4 year old ending up in the ICU. Friends of ours are pediatric urgent care docs, so we talked about this over dinner many times during the h1n1 season, and they were definitely seeing more badly sick kids than usual.
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