From my Dorland's

Which is one of the standard medical dictionaries.

Pan-dem-ic (pan-dem-ik). A widespread epidemic of a disease.
Epi-dem-ic (epi-dem-ik). Occurring suddenly in numbers clearly in excess of normal expectancy.

For further reference, epi is the Greek for across, pan for the whole, and demic comes from demos, the people or population. That is what pandemic means. Nowhere does it say anything about "we're all going to die," which would be from the Fox News dictionary.

Curiously, my Dorland's offers this clinical definition on the same page as pandemic:

Panic (pan-ik). "Acute, extreme, and unreasoning fear and anxiety."

Medicine is in the business of containing one clinical disorder, and broadcast media are in the business of spreading another. As you sit glued to the news, waiting for the latest swine flu bulletin, remember that it comes to you from a medium which has succeeded in making an inch of snow a paralyzing crisis, and is trying to do the same for rain showers.

What we have here is an inch of snow.