As more news updates about the swine flu outbreak are coming in, sometimes contradictory, it’s easy to panic and forget common sense. Reports of the infection spreading to more countries, new travel health advisories for Mexico, and the World Health Organization revising the infection status as causing ‘community-level outbreaks’, tend to inadvertently increase our level of fear. In all this flurry of activity, it is important to keep in mind that this situation is not a pandemic and that a majority of cases have reported mild symptoms (although it is yet unclear why the strain is more virulent in Mexico). In fact, the regular seasonal flu is currently a larger threat to public health than swine flu. This outbreak ...
