Chasing the swine flu bug

The reporter assigned to get the local angle on the flu swine story went home sick. Obviously, we hope he doesn't have it.
The nature of the nationwide health alert stories can be slippery. How dangerous is it? How likely is a pandemic in Mankato, Minnesota? Journalists are always trying to strike the right balance between providing solid information and creating panic. We've been posting stories originating from our worldwide wire services onto our web site today to give people as much information as possible.
You might remember the old "Extra" editions. We'll we've sort of adopted that premise to our Web site, setting off a section called "Blanket Coverage" and trying to provide the most information possible for people to get informed.
These outbreaks tend to be a bit scary for all involved, but so far, there doesn't appear to be a huge threat in the U.S.
The World Health Organization was meeting today to discuss raising its level of alert. In the U.S. we called a "health emergency" on Sunday. Unfortunately, Obama and the Homeland Security secretary had to basically say "emergency" doesn't really mean emergency. Figure that out.