There really isn't anything new of substance to report since yesterday except the current tally of the cases, which is not as critical as actually identifying who is getting infected. It's basically a waiting game at the moment as health officials track down cases and their contacts and labs do their work, which both take time. The lab testing can take days to get back a result, which is why there's such a disparity between the number of suspected and confirmed cases, especially from Mexico.

It's not so worrying--or as worrying, I guess I should say--if the tally keeps climbing as long as all the cases either went to Mexico or were people who had close contact with someone who had been in Mexico recently, like family members, close friends, or classmates. If that's the case, then concentrated efforts to minimize further transmission would likely contain it and let the various outbreaks burn out on their own. Basically similar to what happens when there's a flare up of meningitis at your local college campus but health officials can keep it from spreading to the wider community at large.

Things go to the next level if we start discovering a lot of random people infected in New York or San Diego and these other places with little or no apparent exposure to anyone recently in Mexico or one of their close contacts. At that point, it becomes apparent that the flu has the ability to spread efficiently throughout a community and not just among close contacts. But even then, it could still remain relatively mild and benign and not end up killing many people at all.

Someone was saying yesterday or Sunday on the TV, which I agree with--that at this point, it's something we should let the public health officials freak out over, but it's not yet at the point where most of us need to freak out over.