H1N1: Take It Seriously, Take It Easy

State and national health officials have been advising less hand wringing and more hand washing as the reasoned response to the expected fall resurgence of the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu. Despite the high profile H1N1 has maintained in the media since it was introduced to us in fevered headlines last spring, its threat to the population so far seems to be on a par with the garden variety seasonal flu that plagues us most years. As a result, the temptation is to dismiss swine flu as just so much hype.

In June, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared, however, that a pandemic of H1N1 was underway, a testament to the power of the virus to spread quickly through the world’s population, targeting young people most frequently. In August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that of the 522 people who had died so far of swine flu complications in the United States, 60 percent were under the age of 49.

Every flu season is a killer; 36,000 people die each year in the United States of flu-related causes. But pandemic influenza has the potential to inflict a mortality rate to the earth’s population similar that of world war. The H1N1 Spanish flu pandemic of 1918–19 infected one third of the world’s population and killed an estimated 50 to 100 million people.

Compared to that viral holocaust, the swine flu that moved last week into college dormitories along with the futons and minifridges is just a harmless shadow. The big worry is whether it is a foreshadow of something more sinister. Epidemiologists all over the world are watching for mutations that could turn the relatively benign swine flu into something far more deadly. (Last month, H1N1 jumped a species barrier in Chile, infecting flocks of turkeys, raising the specter of a recombinant strain of the virus taking on some of the more aggressive characteristics of avian flu. In this case, fortunately, the threat has been discounted.)

The swine flu pandemic will likely turn into a personal challenge for many of us. State health officials anticipate that as many as one million of the state’s 3.5 million residents will get the H1N1 virus. While it may be in our nature to meet every challenge with fortitude and a resolve to “carry on,” perhaps the biggest contribution we can make to the cause of slowing the spread of swine flu and speeding our own recovery is to be a little less heroic in fighting through the illness. If you get sick, stay home, don’t go to work or school for at least 24 hours after your fever disappears. You won’t be doing your workplace or school any favors by showing up. Unlike so much else that we do, the advantage in this fight goes to the ones who take it easy.