It's too early to know exactly how big this outbreak of swine flu will become. It's very strange to watch something this potentially dangerous and fast-moving unfold, and I think it's caught the attention of a lot of people. This morning, my across-the-hall colleague, Adam, asked, with a mix of journalistic black humor and earnest, new-parent worry, "So, are we all going to die?"

It's definitely a little scary when public-health experts take a disease outbreak as seriously as they're taking this one. On the other hand, it's reassuring, too. You know they're going to do everything they can to make sure things don't get away from them—and they've looked very hard at the really bad epidemics of the past to try to learn what works and what doesn't.

So don't worry too much—but do wash your hands often. (Don't worry, but don't ignore.) In fact, here are a few steps I think are worth taking:

1. Wash your hands right. A lot of people don't; they treat a bar of soap as though it's magical. Unfortunately, merely touching the soap will not vaporize germs. Soap works by coating germs—essentially, making them slippery so that water can wash them away—but you have to help things along by rubbing and scrubbing. The standard advice is to wash for about as long as it takes to sing "Happy Birthday." As an additional public health measure, you may keep your singing under your breath.

2. Use hand sanitizer. Whenever there's a lot of illness around, it makes sense to carry one of those little bottles of sanitizer because, let's face it, who wants to wash their hands for as long as it takes to sing "Happy Birthday"? Alcohol-based sanitizers are actually better at killing germs than soap and water. But the sanitizer has to be alcohol-based; check the label, because some aren't. Look for ones that are at least 60% alcohol. And again, you have to do the job right. Use a nice, big glop of sanitizer, enough to get your hands thoroughly wet, and rub until they're dry.

3. Get plenty of sleep. I wish it were otherwise because I'm perennially short on sleep, but studies do indicate that your resistance to infection goes down when you don't get enough. Do as I say, not as I do, and get to bed at a reasonable hour.

4. Think about vitamin D. I personally think it's worth taking this particular supplement daily, even though generally I think diet is the way to get your vitamins. You can't get enough D through diet unless you really, really like cod-liver oil. And the research on this vitamin is awfully impressive. In fact, some recent studies show that people who are deficient in D are 36% more likely to develop respiratory infections.

Finally, stay tuned for more—chances are, this story isn't over.