 The initial outbreak received a week of near @-@ constant media attention . Epidemiologists cautioned that the number of cases reported in the early days of an outbreak can be very inaccurate and deceptive , due to several causes , among them selection bias , media bias and incorrect reporting by governments . Inaccuracies could also be caused by authorities in different countries looking at differing population groups . Furthermore , countries with poor health care systems and older laboratory facilities may take longer to identify or report cases . " [ E ] ven in developed countries the [ numbers of flu deaths ] are uncertain , because medical authorities don 't usually verify who actually died of influenza and who died of a flu @-@ like illness " . Joseph S. Bresee ( the CDC flu division 's epidemiology chief ) and Michael Osterholm ( director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy ) have pointed out that millions of people have had H1N1 flu , usually in a mild form , so the numbers of laboratory @-@ confirmed cases were actually meaningless , and in July 2009 , the WHO stopped keeping count of individual cases and focused more on major outbreaks . 
