WHO Declares Swine Flu Pandemic

Persons in charge of making such decisions can't afford to be so foolish as to allow emotions to cloud judgment that could potentially affect the lives of billions of people around the globe. To be detached and passive is an inherent quality that people dealing with matters of such importance must maintain at all costs.

It actually makes sense. I44 deaths from a "pandemic" isn't much at all, so 'only' would be the proper word

The world "only" isn't supposed to be demeaning to the human lives lost, it's supposed to highlight the relatively low statistical probability of dying from Swine Flu. In most cases this is a measure to prevent a massive panic not dissimilar to the one when the first outbreaks were recorded. The problem you are describing is simply a side-effect of a culture in which global communication is instantaneous. It's rather silly to assume that we should be devastated by the loss of every human life we hear/see is lost. As a matter of fact, if it mattered that much, society would collapse as we know it (everyone would be simply too depressed.) In a time like this it's difficult to remember that there was always death and loss of human life. What a lot of people fail to realize is that same communication that you think is making us desensitized to death is the same communication that has prevented or at least severely hindered many genocides and other crimes against humanity. A recent example is Darfur.. If the world hadn't been aware of what was going on with our ability to instantly broadcast death and massacre it's highly unlikely any of the dozens of aid agencies working in that area would have responded (or known where to respond, respectively.)