It's not hype you fool. This flu is following exactly the same pattern as the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed more people than WW1 - about 50 million to be exact.
Add modern air travel to that and denser populations and game over.
For reference, a comparison of this flu and the Spanish flu compared to ordinary influenza. Note how these flus are special in that they target primarily young healthy people rather than children and elderly, by way of triggering a cytokine storm in strong immune systems:
File:W curve.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Normal yearly influenza kills about 5% of all hospitalised cases. This influenza is killing 5 to 10% of ALL cases, hospitalised or not. For every 1000 people infected, 100 die. If you extrapolate that to the entire world, that's almost a billion people dead.