Dr Rock (for brains it seems),
I leave to others to decide who is touched here. I'm not the one who decided to hijack Steve's thread with insults though. I merely responded to an attack. I would say in general though it's not a good idea to respond to an argument using facts with opinions.
On the issue of global deaths from influenza, the statistics are clear. Every year, and excluding pandemics, up to 600,000 people die from it worldwide. Not to be sneezed at. At all. By far the best way to help prevent its spread is to immunise populations, especially those most at risk. This has much the same effect as fire breaks in forest fires in that it becomes more difficult to jump around. It is a fact that Europe in general, with healthcare systems that are free at the point of use (and which incidentally take a smaller proportion of national GDP to fund), have higher immunisation rates and lower deaths, particularly amongst the poor and most vulnerable areas of the population. The highest death rates worldwide are in sub Saharan Africa who have the poorest healthcare systems and little organised immunisation.
Finally, neither of us has any knowledge of what afflicted Sue, and perhaps now Steve. I would clearly hope that no members of his family contract the serious flu virus doing the rounds at present (like every year, there are always several). It remains however, part of the British character to make light of adversity, most often by using humour or satire. It's been around since well before 1776 and is unlikely to change any time soon.