A Google search for news stories posted in the past two weeks about a possible swine flu pandemic yields nearly 75,000 results, and the number is growing hour by hour. The week before that… zero. This little exercise demonstrates how quickly threats arise in a fast-moving world and how easy it is for indifferent and inattentive people to be blindsided by those threats. Yet three weeks ago, when a pandemic just was not news by any editor’s standard, Newtown health and public safety officials met with the first selectman for a training session and a review of local communications capabilities and how those resources might be taxed in the event of — yes, a pandemic.

It is not in the nature of Newtown’s emergency response professionals and volunteers to be indifferent about training — even against remote threats. They understand that the remote threat can be the most devastating; its damage can be quickly compounded by confusion and ignorance. That is why a year ago, in Bethel, scores of likeminded health and public safety officials conducted a full-blown pandemic response drill to establish a system of triage and treatment that would bring help the greatest number of people in the shortest period of time. This kind of training and readiness results in efficient and effective protocols that actually save lives in real crises.

Now that the news media have gotten everyone’s attention with an alarming tide of coverage, these experts are counseling caution and common sense (see story). The deadly outbreak of swine flu in Mexico resembles the anticipated epidemiology for the start of a major pandemic, but it is not a pandemic yet. The cases that have apparently spread with travelers from Mexico to at least ten countries and several states in the US is not yet considered a pandemic. The cases reported outside Mexico’s borders appear, at least for now, to be less deadly.

No one really knows where or how this strain of influenza will develop from here. Perhaps the virus will die out in humans as quickly as it evolved. We may be lucky this time. We may have something new and compelling to think about two weeks from now, pushing pandemic from our field of attention. One thing we should all carry with us from this experience, no matter what its duration or course, is a deep appreciation for those who prepare, year in, year out, for threats the rest of us would prefer not to think about. They protect us, and not just from nightmare scenarios presented by a quick and unpredictable world. They protect us from the threats we inflict on ourselves — ignorance and confusion and their dangerous accomplices, indifference and inattention.