A MONTH ago or so, we were all het up about the H1N1 virus.

Epidemic. Pandemic. Yellow. Orange. Masks. Hand sanitiser. Business continuity plans.

Being quite an avowed germophobe, I didn't have to rush to the pharmacies as I had quite a few packs of Dettol wet wipes and bottles of hand sanitiser at home already. (In fact, I have them in my bag as well as bottles of the stuff on every desk I work at - office and at home.)

When my parents went on holiday to the Gold Coast, I made sure they had a bottle of hand sanitiser at least. And when I went to pick them up at the airport, I applied the stuff almost every five minutes - mostly because I hate oily hands, but also because I have a rather weak constitution and tend to get sick easily.

So even when my company escalated our business continuity plan which was, frankly, a pain as it involved splitting our newsrooms into two locations, I was relieved at the action being taken. We didn't split up in the end as the Government downgraded the orange alert to yellow the day before the split was to happen.

As irritating as twice-daily temperature checks and moving to Genting Lane would have been, I thought our business continuity plan would have kicked in when Singapore's first H1N1 case was announced.

It's been more than a week since and the local tally is now five cases - yet we still haven't raised our alert.

Not that that's a bad thing.

In fact, two weeks ago when I had a common cold, my doctor and I chatted about the H1N1 flu - and he said, very common-sensically, that thousands of people die annually from the common flu, and hundreds of thousands during seasonal epidemics.

As he pointed out, most of the H1N1 deaths have been cases in which the victims are old or have underlying heart conditions. So he urged me to be realistic and not get too hysterical, even as Singapore's case load built up to five.

This morning, however, freaked me out a little.

First, my sister visited the doctor no thanks to her asthma acting up, only to be told that she needed a bout with the nebuliser machine - which happened to be in a room where a girl had been just been quarantined before being carted off to the Communicable Disease Centre due to a suspected case.

Her reaction: I'll pass.

Then I heard about a member of our ST.com team who's fallen ill - fever and all - after her fiance returned from the US.

Uh oh.

Maybe I'm over-reacting, but this is, after all, the end of the American school year and lots of Singaporeans will be returning for the summer holidays.

In fact, one of my best friends (returning from Boston via New York) Darren and I already have a date planned for Purvis Street beef noodles as soon as he gets back next week.

As my colleague Eugene Leow, who now lives in New York, says: Life goes on.

But that's not going to stop me from dousing Darren with hand sanitiser the minute I see him. And my sister, for that matter.