Back in April, when news first broke that the swine flu had reached the United States, the panic headlines we were reading on the national news gave some of us in the newsroom a good chuckle:

• “The regular flu kills thousands every year — how’s this any different?”

• “You’ve got a better chance of being killed in a car crash on your way to work.”

• “Boy, fear sure does sell news!”

An so on. We were feeling pretty smug and superior, as journalists are sometimes prone to be.

Well, we’re not laughing any more. A 12-year-old Bristol girl, Victoria Sousa, died suddenly last week. Tests confirmed that she had been infected with H1N1.

This one hits too close to home. Had this been a child from Wisconsin — perhaps even Westerly — I don’t think we’d be feeling the same sense of anxiety we are now. If time heals all wounds, then distance helps us seek solace. An innocent child died, right in our backyard. Our heartfelt sympathies go to the Sousa family.

Health professionals are telling us not to panic, that we need to keep things in perspective. About 36,000 people die in the United States each year from seasonal influenza, after all.

Yes, H1N1 is a Pandemic influenza — a new influenza A virus that people have little or no immunity against until they receive the vaccine, and it tends to target younger people. However, fatalities are still very rare, say health officials. The vast majority of people who contract H1N1 will experience a few miserable days with a fever (or not), coughing, body aches, fatigue, and possibly vomiting and diarrhea — not unlike the symptoms of a seasonal flu — and then they’ll recover and likely be immune from the virus.

But that’s of little comfort to people worrying that the virus will make our own children or other family members seriously ill — or worse. The tragic news last week has put many people on edge.

After I learned of Victoria’s death, I spoke to my two sons — Jake, 16, and Max, 13 — about the situation and what they should be doing to help ward off the virus (both of their schools had already briefed them, of course). Jake, ever the skeptic, interrupted me to say this whole swine flu thing is way overblown. The chances of death are very slim, he said.

He sounded like me six months ago. He may have been right, but I was in no mood to hear it. It was the first time in a long time that I really yelled at him. “Just listen to me!” I barked.

I apologized for losing my composure. I’m a parent and I worry, I told him. It’s part of my job description. But I felt bad that my outburst may have revealed my angst — and anxiety can be as contagious as the flu.

For those residents who have never had to deal with a Pandemic flu before — there were only three in the 20th century, the last in 1968 — this is all new to us, and that’s only fueling our nervousness.

But let’s all take a collective breath. H1N1 is already all around us; about a third of all Rhode Islanders will get the virus, health officials estimate. Some people have already contracted H1N1 and recovered from it. The vast majority of those who get the virus will be OK, health care officials say.

Instead of worrying ourselves to no end, the best we can do is to get the H1N1 vaccine as soon as it’s available, read updates from local health care officials, and follow their advice on washing our hands with soap and water as often as possible and practicing “respiratory etiquette.”

It’s OK to be worried, but a more constructive plan of action would be for all of us to work together to get through this. And we will.