Or, as Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told USA Today recently, "Technically speaking, it may be one mutation away," but for a virus, that last step can be a real doozy.

It might help if government officials got into the habit of continually reminding people that they are better off looking both ways before crossing the street than they are worrying about how to avoid bird flu. Unless you're in the habit of munching on raw chicken, even an outbreak of dead birds shouldn't keep you away from the meat counter.

Americans are good at viewing new diseases with alarm, forgetting we have plenty to worry about with all the old diseases. Whether it's Legionnaire's Disease or West Nile Virus, we focus on it rather than, say, the 40,000 or so people who die each year from the good-old-garden-variety flu.

Leavitt reminded his audience that pandemics are a part of life. If it's not bird flu, it will be something else some day that comes along and wipes out a lot of people. He's right. It would be foolish not to prepare, even on state and local levels.

But it also would be smart right now to learn what not to do when some dead birds show up in this country, as they are bound to do sometime soon.

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Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret Morning News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com