Massive under-reporting of Swine Flu?

An interesting email jules received, I don't think I've met the person (maybe once or twice, but certainly not recently):

then... dare I say it... last weekend, I developed flu-like symptoms, so instead of finally seeing you all, I was laid up with a temperature and aches in places where I'd forgotten I had places! (I was not alone either - a number of other conference delegates also experienced the same thing - we deduced that the source was dodgy hotel air conditioning).

Um...if I developed "flu-like symptoms" a few days after a conference in Tokyo, and found that several other delegates had the same experience, I would deduce that it was....flu! Of course it *could* be the ordinary seasonal flu...but given that the new type is so easy to catch and generally mild, it would hardly be a surprise to find that that's what it was.

I also saw this on scienceblogs:

Thirty thousand people in Britain are likely to have been already infected by swine flu, one of the country's leading authorities has told The Independent on Sunday.

Of course, this implies that it is not very serious, and the WHO is desperately trying to pretend that there is no pandemic, even though its own rules make it quite clear that this status has actually been reached. If everyone agrees to look the other way and not do any testing they might be able to pretend it has simply died out.

[oops, this was posted by James]