I hope this doesn't stir up a can of worms, but....I'm surprised at the number of folks who say you should get it "because you work around children, patients, public, etc". Again, coming from a totally science background....gettting the flu vaccine only (hopefully) prevents you from getting sick. It doesn't create a magical force field around you to prevent it from coming into contact with you. A vaccinated person still easily contracts, fights off, and passes on the flu virus to other people. The flu still enters the body of a vaccinated person, it just is caught by the immune system and destroyed before it causes clinical symptoms - that's what vaccines do; they create the system that quickly locates, targets, and destroys what it is they are vaccinated for. I really hope that people do not come to think that because you are vaccinated, you cannot somehow make others ill. It's totally false. So please don't think that because you are vaccinated, you are protecting everybody else - because you can still easily pass it on to other people!!
It's just way too early to know much about how it's all going to pan out. I saw on the news the other night that a young girl has died from H1N1. That is truly sad, and I mourn for her family, it must be awful to go through something like that, I couldn't even begin to imagine. But to be realistic, approximately 35,000 people die from the regular flu every year, and have for dozens of years, and that is not publicized every time somebody passes away, and mass vaccinating has not changed that statistic that much. And it is generally the immunocompromised, young, or old who do. Unfortunately media is doing as media does right now, and is trying to send out a scare tactic. I don't know the number of confirmed deaths due to H1N1 at this time in Canada or the U.S., but it's probably not any higher than the "normal" death rate due to influenza at this time. Vaccinations or no, some folks are still going to die each year from influenza - it's just unfortunately how it goes.