The politics of naming a pandemic

"Adding that requirement of severity may sound like common sense. But it is not, because the severity of a pandemic is unpredictable. The flu might fizzle out; or it could go away for months only to come back with a vengeance, creating as much devastation as the 1918 flu outbreak, which caused an estimated 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide.

Moreover, the WHO has pointed out that adding that criterion at a global level would be largely meaningless — what might be deemed a mild disease in a rich country with many doctors, drugs and intensive-care units might be more severe and cause considerable mortality in a poor country with little health infrastructure, and where underlying diseases may worsen outcomes of a flu infection.

So what's the big hang-up with calling a pandemic a pandemic? Those fretting over the term include news pundits in denial about the scale of the threat, along with politicians and scientists who fear that using the word may induce public panic."

(more from Nature)