Swine flu is a deadly virus that seems to have originated from Mexico.  By the time it was identified, it was too widespread to contain and would go on to become a pandemic.  This virus is now making waves around the world and killing hundreds, if not thousands, of people each week.  World governments (Spain, in this instance), seem to be covering up deaths in order to avoid panic, so it's difficult to tell how widespread or virulent this flu is.

The first wave, in the Spring and Summer, was stronger than expected.  The virus didn't do much in the Southern hemisphere, but continued to be about three times as active as normal flu during the Summer in the US, where it killed about five hundred people in the span of three months.  This doesn't seem like much, but take note that seasonal influenza rarely kills anyone over the Summer and most of these people were in their prime.

Now that October is rolling by, the flu has started its second wave.  Mutations are starting to become apparent because of the larger number of infections and Tamiflu resistance is a major concern.  There have been clinical signs of increased virulence and a higher incidence of rapid death in patients infected with H1N1.

Although things seem bleak, the vaccine is on its way, but I'm afraid it might be too little too late.  The flu is starting to infect a larger adult population, as seen in the increase of deaths.  Adults, however, are not priority for the vaccine, so they will be battered by the time it rolls around for them.  The US is not expected to have all of its requested vaccine until mid or late January, which will be just in time for the flu to mutate again and start wreaking havoc in the Spring.

Historically, pandemics seem to become more severe in the second wave.  These are generally viruses that have jumped from animals to humans and are not fully adapted to their human hosts.  As they infect more humans, a dominant strain starts to emerge that is more well-suited for this job.  This would usually be a good thing because viruses don't really like to kill their hosts, but this dominant strain is not fully adapted and is just as deadly (if not more) than the other ones.  This is because it is more effective at replicating in the human system.  Since humans have no immunity to this novel flu strain, it doesn't have to worry about killing off its hosts because there are billions more that it can infect.

Once the flu has run its course over 10-14 weeks, another strain will emerge that is usually less virulent and equally transmissible.  This is referred to as the third wave.  It is usually worse than the first wave, but only about half as bad as the second.

The short answer to this question is: Yes

We are definitely in the second wave of the virus, as evident from the chart above.  You might wonder, then, why it isn't killing many more people than it was over the Summer.  The problem with the current reporting of H1N1 deaths is that it is required that the person be tested for the virus and only hospitalized patients have to be.  People that die at home are usually just listed as having died from pneumonia or something similar.

If you look at the CDC's weekly death chart, you'll see that there have been about 500 deaths a week from Pneumonia and Influenza.  This is significantly higher than it was at the beginning of September, where it was hanging out at around 100.  This may mean that the virus is causing a significant amount of unreported deaths.  These will probably play a role in later models, but it's really impossible to tell how deadly the virus is at this point.  The best that can be done is to extrapolate data from statements made by health agencies and fit the pieces together.  I've found consistent sources that indicate that the virus has a mortality rate of about 1%, which is 10x as high as seasonal flu and less than half of the mortality rate that the Spanish Flu had.

We are fortunate, at the moment, that the flu hasn't caused widespread illness in adults.  This could be because they have some sort of immunity to it or that the flu just isn't as effective in jumping from host to host as was originally thought.  If this continues to be the case, we may be able to ride out this flu season and be vaccinated before the flu really takes off as it becomes more adapted for humans.