“Two million dead. Hospitals overwhelmed. Schools closed. Swaths of empty seats at baseball stadiums and houses of worship. An economic recovery snuffed out…”

This is not a news item from Yahoo, but this is what people fear now. I love a good global plague story like Stephen King’s “The Stand” (which has sold more copies than any book except The Bible”). I love a good movie about a meteor hitting the Earth. I did prepare for Armageddon on New Years’s Eve 2000. I do have emergency supplies stored at by beach house.

But swine flu isn’t the next plague. This isn’t 1913 and the Spanish Flu.  We have medicine like Tamiflu and other tools this time. We have a global communication system that warns other people to take precautions. I know that people love a good plague story, but just like the this Great Recession of 2008- 2009, fear mongering does us no good. Think back again on what President Roosevelt said during the Great Depression-“The only thing we have to fear is …: You get the drift.

The fear of swine flu is already starting to effect the economy. People not traveling. People not attending public events. This doesn’t help. What we need is to take precautions (wash your hands, buy a truckload of Purell, eat healthy, exercise and get some sleep). Your body is an incredible fighting machine when it’s in good shape.

Go worry about something else, like the computer virus, Conficker….