There are veritable reasons to be concerned about the swine flu (H1N1 virus). We would not want to repeat the SARS outbreak of 2003, or worse, the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50 million people. It is nevertheless interesting that although the avian flu (H5N1 virus) has been in the news for several years, it has not gained the same traction that the swine flu has had in just a few days. Some may attribute the rapid dissemination of information (and fear) to social networking technologies and the boisterous media. xkcd has even produced a humrous and satirical comic to illustrate this effect.

I nevertheless agree that we need to maintain a high degree of caution and vigilance with the swine flu. While Twitter and related technologies may generate more mass hysteria than necessary, they have also extended useful and up-to-date news to the public. @CDCemergency is an example of a great Twitter resource to follow CDC updates on the issue. I have also embedded a Google Map below that tracks reported swine flu cases.

View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map

• The pink tags are suspected cases.
• The purple tags are confirmed cases.
• The yellow tags are negative cases.
• Deaths lack a dot in the tag.

You can monitor whether your state or city has been affected. Now, I don my N95 mask and lock myself in the basement until Twitter says the swine flu pandemic has passed. [Disclaimer: the last sentence was a joke]