Please note: This news story was compiled April 27 at 4:30PM PST and reflects all information availalble at that time.

Stanford Health Policy core faculty Douglas Owens studies emergency responses to disease outbreaks. He sees the current swine flu outbreak as "exceptionally concerning" and says the next few days will give us a better sense of how far-reaching the epidemic is and how prepared the U.S. is.

"[The swine flu outbreak] is potentially quite serious," Owens said. "It's clearly all over the U.S. already. But the big question is whether it's going to cause mild disease or severe disease. The 100 people who have died in Mexico City-is that 100 out of a thousand or 100 out of 20,000? If it's 20,000 then it might not be such a big deal."

But if it's 100 deaths out of 1,000 cases-- a ten percent mortality rate-- then there is cause for serious concern. As a point of historical context, the 1918 flu pandemic killed 675,000 Americans and decreased the average U.S. lifespan by ten years. But the mortality rate was a mere 2.8 percent-- exceptionally high for a flu but substantially lower than a ten percent rate.

Much like the 1918 flu pandemic, what makes the swine flu outbreak so disconcerting is that healthy young adults are dying from the disease. Usually influenzas kill those who have weak immune systems-- the elderly and very young-- but in Mexico the swine flu has killed young adults, as reported in the Washington Post. This indicates an exceptionally aggressive disease that could wipe out traditionally healthy parts of the population.

The young people who contract the swine flu begin losing respiratory system functioning and require ventilators. Owens said one risk of an outbreak is that our country doesn't have the large number of ventilators necessary for a widespread pandemic.

Owens said we won't know the severity of swine flu for a few days. "[Today] it's 40 cases with no deaths in U.S.," Owens said. "The identification of cases is probably going to explode over the next few days."

Local hospitals don't have the capability to test whether patients are infected with the swine flu strand, so the public will have to wait until lab results come back from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As word of the outbreak spreads, it's expected that sick patients will be increasingly checked for the swine flu strand-overwhelming CDC labs and stalling results.

In the meantime the CDC recommends people wash their hands and take normal flu-related precautions-"get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food. Try not touch surfaces that may be contaminated with the flu virus. Avoid close contact with people who are sick," the CDC website says.

Owens said that the CDC response that he's observed in news stories has been reasonable. "I agreed with [Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet] Napolitano's analogy that this is getting ready for a hurricane that might not hit-a good analogy," Owens said. "The best thing people can do is follow the precautions of the flu season."

If it turns out the rate of secondary transmission is high, Owens said the government will ramp up its efforts as has been seen in Mexico with the closing of schools, terminating of events and widespread use of masks.

In the meantime Owens recommends checking the CDC website for updates and following its recommendations.

Owens spent Monday at a meeting of physicians in Washington and said doctors are heeding the CDC's advice. "No one would shake hands. None of the doctors would touch each other!"