Take flu warnings seriously, but no need to overreact

America's media have a bad case of swine flu hysteria.

News stories, sound bites, tweets and twitters are whipping us into a paranoid frenzy. Why not? Fear sells, and pictures of people clad in facemasks walking around in shuttered cities make for interesting front pages—in print and online.

The rare virus creeping out of Mexico has health officials all but admitting that a worldwide pandemic is underway.

The plague it is not, although precautions still must be taken.

Swine flu is a type-A influenza virus usually found in pigs. Although uncommon in humans, a variant of the virus known as H1N1 has infected people who work with or are exposed to pigs. Unfortunately, the virus can also be passed from person to person, the same as the common flu. What worries health officials is that there isn't a vaccine for the new strain.

In sheer numbers, regular flu is far deadlier than swine flu. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control tracked the number of deaths attributed to the flu between 1990 and 1999 and found that more than 36,000 people had died from the disease each year. That's an average of 3,000 a month. In the past 30 days, swine flu has claimed one U.S. life. Your chances of getting struck by lightning are probably better.

But swine flu still poses a serious threat and doctors recommend people take certain steps to prevent its spreading. Wash your hands regularly, especially if you're blowing your nose often. Sneeze into a tissue or into the crook of your arm— not into your hands. And if you have a temperature over 100 degrees accompanied by a cough and runny nose, by all means go see a doctor. It is still okay to eat your morning bacon.

For an objective read on the situation, see Dan Wolowicz's story on page 23.

Is swine flu something doctors and the public should care about? Of course. Does it warrant all-out panic? Of course not.

Your time is better spent worrying about the freeway driver next to you—dangerously talking, texting or speeding.

Now that's an epidemic we should all be concerned about.