Let's not overreact: Some Swine Flu Facts

The incubation period for the flu is 2-5 days.[1] This means that if you went to Mexico two weeks ago and have not shown symptoms, you do not have the flu. If a co-worker went to Cancun over Christmas, she does not have Swine Flu.

You can not catch swine flu from eating pork.[2] Cooking pork kills the swine flu virus.

There are drugs to treat swine flu patients.[2] Four drugs are used to treat the flu: amantadine, rimantadine, oseltamivir and zanamivir. The recent strain of swine flu has been resistent to amantadine and rimantadine, oseltamivir or zanamivir seem to be effective.

In the U.S. alone, 36,000 people die each year of (non-swine) flu and about 42,000 die of car accidents.[3][4] With one confirmed death in the U.S. so far and 159 in Mexico, swine flu is still very low on the list of things likely to kill you.




[1] - http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20031205/raise-your-flu-iq
[2] - http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/key_facts.htm
[3] - http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm
[4] - http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx