We’re all going to be quarantined and die horrible deaths under plastic sheets. Military troops in hazmat suits are going to march down our streets and force us to stay in our houses while the government bombs us. Or maybe crowds of the infirm will be moved into tent camps.

The swine flu, having killed no more than 200 confirmed victims, has captured the doom-saying imagination of the United States. It’s going to kill us all. There’s no hope, no escape and no recourse.

It’s disappointing how fast the media jumps on the gloom bandwagon when an infectious disease appears. When there’s nothing else to report, a disease can always lift the media’s spirits.

Panic is pandemic less one syllable. When a virus starts spreading, everyone freaks out, but worrying about a disease makes you more prone to sickness. In numerous scientific studies, lab researchers have shown links between stress and a weakened immune system. In a study conducted by Herbert and Cohen, environmental stress was found to decrease the number of T-cells in test subjects; T-cells hunt down and expunge viruses from our bodies.

If you flip out about viruses storming across our nation, you’re more likely to be infected with the swine flu. So stop hyperventilating and gathering quarantine supplies — you’ll be fine.

Most of the frenzy is perpetrated by the news media. There are hourly updates on most news sites, with a running tally of infected people. They might as well have a virus “hit counter” on their main pages — that’s how consumed the media is with the virus.

I’m not saying that swine flu isn’t a threat; it is an infectious disease.

But the last two times an enormous and panic-tinged disease scare hit the United States, nothing really ended up happening. SARS fizzled out after a few months, and its mortality rate never shot over 10 percent. The avian flu was projected to have about a 1 percent mortality rate if it ever caused a pandemic. Everyone’s worst fears are constantly being toyed with by the media, which is unfair to the average consumer of news.

I encourage you to be aware of danger, but never to let it affect your quality of life if it doesn’t have to. There are always going to be prophets of doom heralding the collapse of civilization as we know it. It makes for readable news, and people gobble it right up.

Anytime a pig coughs in Mexico, there’s a reporter from The Associated Press there to scream bloody panic to the world. But thousands of children across the world die every day from preventable causes, and the media couldn’t care less — someone please explain this to me.

Meanwhile, I’m going to go watch a double header of Charlotte’s Web and Babe.

Reach columnist Jackson Rohrbaugh at opinion@dailyuw.com.