According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of May 7, 23 different countries have confirmed 2099 cases of infection, with the United States and Mexico making up nearly 75% of the cases.

On May 5, a Fairfax High School student became the first suspected case of swine flu in the Los Angeles Unified School District; however, the school will remain open. The Center for Disease Control has not advised closure because “in general, [school closure] is not advised unless there is a magnitude of faculty or student absenteeism that interferes with the school's ability to function.” According to Fox News on May 5, Los Angeles County already has 11 confirmed cases with about 12 probable cases as well.

While the epidemic has raised some concern about international travel, it has not yet prompted WHO to recommend travel restrictions. It argues that “[it] would have very little effect on stopping the virus from spreading, but would be highly disruptive to the global community.”

Despite the hysteria, the Glendale Unified School District has taken precautionary steps to ensure the safety of its schools. The efforts made to prevent an outbreak are, as Direct of Public Information Linda Junge sees it, quite challenging. “A lot of agencies are involved, efforts with the city, fire chiefs, representatives from the major hospitals,” Junge said. “There are a lot of unknowns.”

Among those unknowns are such factors as determining how to deal with supervision on a city level if schools are mandated to close. Essentially students would be strongly advised to stay home to contain an outbreak if schools were closed down.

Yet with all the necessary precautions that have been implemented to ensure the safety of our communities, feelings of paranoia and skepticism linger. Spanish teacher Julie-Ann Melville, while appreciating the value “bad news” can have in influencing good health practices, feels that “the information being broadcast about this Influenza Virus H1N1 is sensationalistic and perhaps inaccurate.” She goes on to explain that television networks just feed on the craze to fill up time allotted to them on a particular station, and gain better rating, which consequently means more money.

Some instances of over-inflated reports about the epidemic, both in Mexico and in the States, have done more harm than good, according to Melville. “In the U.S. news there was a report that schools and hospitals were closed in Ensenada, which is where my in-laws are,” Melville said. “My brother-in-law is a doctor at the social service hospital, and he said that a lot of hysteria [has been] caused by the news that they’ve seen from the United States.” In the end, she said, this heightened state of fear just ends up hurting businesses.

Whether the paranoia over the swine flu breakout is warranted or not, it certainly imparts many lessons. Apart from teaching us to not always blindly trust everything we read or hear in the media, it reminds us of the importance of the golden rule: always wash your hands. “Worst case scenario, if we wash our hands, and practice good hygiene, perhaps we can avoid getting sick, whether there is a serious form of the flu out there or not,” Melville said.