It has been five months since the A(H1N1) influenza virus — aka the swine flu — climbed to the top of the global media heap, and with the start of the Northern Hemisphere's annual flu season just around the corner, the topic is worth revisiting.

If you take only one fact away from this analysis, take this: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) believes that hospitalization rates and mortality rates for A(H1N1) are similar to or lower than they are for more traditional influenza strains. And if you take two facts away, consider this as well: Influenza data are incomplete at best and rarely cross-comparable, so any assertions of the likelihood of mass deaths are little more than scaremongering bereft of any real analysis or, more important, any actual evidence.

Now to the details.

There are a few key characteristics that differentiate this year's A(H1N1) strain from other influenza viruses. Most notable is the fact that the demographic normally associated with influenza vulnerability — the elderly — is considered at low risk from A(H1N1), and there has yet to be a single outbreak at any nursing home. Instead, the virus seems to have an affinity for the younger population, with higher infection rates than normal for those 24 years of age and younger, particularly those less than two years old and pregnant women. This higher incidence among the younger population could have a higher than normal disruptive impact on the labor force, when children and parents stay home from school and work. As a result of this new virus, the U.S. government has radically increased the pace of its vaccination program, and A(H1N1)-specific vaccinations will begin in October. For more information on the vaccination program, see STRATFOR's swine flu fact sheet.

These differences, however, are not game changers. So, while the flu will pose a significant logistical and public relations challenge to governments seeking to prevent outbreaks and control the virus' spread, there is no indication that A(H1N1) will cause even a shadow of the disruption that the hysteria of months past suggested.

Most of that hysteria was rooted in the memory of the 1918 Spanish influenza. Although estimates vary widely — remember that the world was in the fifth year of a grinding war when the epidemic hit, so bean-counting was not exactly high on the priority list — most agree that between 50 million and 100 million people perished from the 1918 flu globally, including roughly 500,000 Americans.

The Spanish influenza was particularly frightening because it disproportionately struck down people in their prime — adults in the 25-35 age cohort — in addition to the very young and very old (the prime sufferers of traditional influenza viruses).