With swine flu media coverage grinding to a halt over the past few months, it is easy to think that the H1N1 pandemic is settling down. With the fall flu season just weeks away, however, flu researchers warn the worst may be yet to come.

Scientists say the mere fact that the flu continues to spread across the northern hemisphere in these warm summer months suggests that conditions will worsen when fall arrives and people are more susceptible to infection. The disease has spread faster in the past six weeks than similar pandemics have spread in six months, and has the potential to become even more virulent during flu season–much like the 1918 pandemic. (Interestingly enough, those who survived that pandemic are immune this time around.)

“We’re taking this virus very seriously, and I think it’s important for the public to be thinking ahead,” Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told Time. “This virus is not going away.”

With the specter of the 2009 flu season looming on the horizon, the world’s leading flu researchers have been scrambling to develop an effective vaccine. A number of nations–including the United States–have already placed orders with the world’s leading vaccine manufacturers, even though scientists are just starting clinical tests. If vaccine stocks prove scarce, researchers may consider adding adjuvants–chemicals that would encourage the immune system to respond–to the vaccines to spread out the global supply. However, the US has never allowed adjuvants to be added to vaccines, and proper testing may delay treatments from coming in.

Because the H1N1 flu virus seems to have hit children the hardest, government officials are considering closing schools during the flu season if the pandemic becomes too severe. School closures could greatly limit the spread of the disease in communities by eliminating a major center of infection. It is unclear, however, how governments might manage the economic effect that an extended vacation might have on families that lack access to childcare. A report published in the journal Lancet suggests that a three-month closure could result in a six percent dip in GDP for the United States.

photo credit: eneas’s Flickr photostream (creative commons)