Flu is horrible. I caught it when there was an outbreak of a certain strain in 1995/6 - can't remember precisely when, but I was at university and it had asthma-like symptoms which were alarming - I was feeling dreadful and wheezing and all my friends were saying "look at me, longtalljosie, where's your inhaler? Is it in your room?" and I couldn't breathe to tell them I wasn't asthmatic!
I then was taken off to bed and couldn't really move for about 4/5 days. It's not the sort of thing you can conquer, like you can a cold.
As a member of the media, but not a health specialist, all I can say is that the government doesn't think we've been overplaying it - and god knows it would say so if it did. Yesterday's press conference was rather alarming. But it does seem so far that the government has prepared for this pretty well. Mostly I suspect because it was expecting H5N1 to mutate.
It does seem to be the case that it's mild at the moment, but the more it spreads, the more likely it is to mutate and become more serious. It's also likely to have a very large impact on the economy and place a big strain on the NHS. It's also the case that the hot weather and sunshine is making it harder for it to spread - and come the autumn with cooler, damper weather, it will spread a lot more quickly.
My baby will be just weeks old then and yes, I am concerned. But there's nothing we can do about this other than encourage co-workers not to be heroes and struggle in to work if they're feeling ill. I think bosses can do a lot to say the usual work-macho thing does not apply at the moment.