Pandemic Really?

On a recent flight to Taipei, we had a lay over in Narita, Japan. In order to debark, each passenger was required to fill out a Quarantine survey to be given to Quarantine agents who boarded the plane and spoke with each passenger (thank god my flight was not full) and handed them the below sheet of paper once deemed safe to enter the country. Another few Quarantine agents were walking around with heat cameras to see if anyone had a temperature above normal.

I couldn't help but to laugh out loud at the word Pandemic ( followed by the flight attended passing me a mask to wear.. I think the last time I wore one was in 1999 with vick vapor rub in it)
The definition of a Pandemic can be broken down to it's greek origins-
Pan-demos or pan- all; demos- people.
From this definition- the FDA defines pandemic as a global outbreak.
This differs from an Epidemic (also in greek origins)
epi- amongt; demos- people
where the later is restricted to a certain area rather then the whole world.

So when was the last Pandemic in history? What does the swine flu look like in comparison to the last real epedemic?
After a little digging on the web, a consensus was formed that the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 killing 80 million was the last recorded pandemic in history. Ok ok, so the swine flu is a form of a flu, i'll give you that much but Pandemic? How many people have actually died of the swine flu? Last I checked there were about 900 cases reported. That's .001% of the number of people who DIED from the last real pandemic.

Pandemic would also imply that people everywhere, every corner have the disease. 900 is hardly justifiable for the real definition of Pandemic- all people. It doesn't even fulfill the definition of epidemic...

I can't help to chuckle to myself when I see the hype spreading. The real pandemic at hand is the hype and fear of the flu.