#Swine Flu: USA "proceeding as if we are preparing to a full pandemic"

SHOOT: This is a wise course of action, and ordinary individuals should make their own preparations slowly and carefully.

clipped from www.sfgate.com Confirming 40 cases of swine flu in the U.S., the Obama administration said Monday it was responding aggressively as if the outbreak would spread into a full pandemic. Officials urged Americans against most travel to Mexico as the virus that began there spread to the United States and beyond. "We want to make sure that we have people where they need to be, equipment where it needs to be and, most of all, information shared at all levels," Janet Napolitano, head of the Homeland Security Department, told reporters. The World Health Organization "now has us at a level 3" out of six levels of intensity, with six being a full pandemic, she said. "Even if they raise the level today, our preparations are as if they had already been raised. We are proceeding as if we are preparing to a full pandemic," she said.