Well I didn't a little bit of research on swine flu after our Uni announced that 2 students had caught it.
When I checked, the WHO's figures were:
0.4% of people who catch swine flu die (if you do your maths, that's 1 in 250 people)
0.45% of people who catch flu die
The symptoms between the two are similar and have similar effects. The main difference is that swine flu is more contagious and thus it is better to keep yourself confined to avoid people catching it and that's why they recommend not going to the doctors. You might be healthy enough to survive it, but the old lady going in for her check-up might not.
However, one of the reasons people don't die from these illnesses is that they take care of themselves and make sure if they get the illness, that they can handle it. I was told (but I didn't research this) that if you've had flu before (I'm talking real flu, not a severe cold, which is often mistaken as flu because of its flu-like symptoms) that your immune system will handle swine flu better.
However, we're forum geeks, so we can either speculate or tell you what we've looked-up or researched, but as Jeku suggested, it's better to ask a medical professional.
As far as the media hype goes, ignore it, talk to a doctor, know the facts and ignore the speculation and you might even find that the doctor says, "there's no point", but you don't know until you ask him/her.
Me, however, I'm not getting one, unless medical professionals turn around and say publicly, "one of the best precautions for swine flu is to take the flu jab". The facts from WHO were enough for me to make a decision, though don't make a decision based on the fact I've decided against it.
[url="http://raptr.com/SeppukuA?src=em_forum"]
[/url]
