According to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, up to 90,000 deaths from swine flu are projected for this season. As a point of reference, about 40,000 deaths are attributed to regular, good ol' influenza each year.
Agree? Disagree w/ the projection?
Official number of deaths from swine flu is being tracked by the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/update.htm#totalcases) which reports 522 deaths already this year.
Source
Dushoff, J. et al. "Mortality due to Influenza in the United States - An Annualized Regression Approach Using Multiple-Cause Mortality Data" American Journal of Epidemiology. 2006.
"Report: Swine flu could cause up to 90,000 US deaths" http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/08/24/us.swine.flu.projections/index.html