Maybe it has more to do with percentages and infection rates. In a normal year, 200,000 to 300,000 people in the US will get the flu. 35,000 to 36,000 of them will die from it.
It is far easier to catch this flu. It is proving itself very efficient at spreading. Perhaps it kills a lower percentage of the people that get it, but the number of people that will get will eclipse your garden variety seasonal flu. Projections are presuming a 50% infection rate -- 1 out of every 2 people may eventually be infected by this flu. Of course, the numbers could be smaller, too. Won't know until after it runs its course.
Also, the more people that get this swine flu, the greater the opportunity for it to mutate into something more sinister. But it could also mutate into something far wimpier, too. No way to know until we get there. One thought is the reason it kills Mexicans is because it has been kicking around in Mexico for awhile now, has mutated into a more sinister flu down there -- hasn't worked its way north, yet. All of the deaths were in clusters in a specific areas.
That is what has folks attention -- not what this flu is right now, but what it has the potential to be, and can it be contained if does morph into a deadly strain of flu.