The most dangerous aspect of the swine flu or any other pestilence may not be the part that's viewable through a microscope.

It's the likelihood that Americans in general are waiting worriedly and — more to the point — passively for marching orders on how to protect themselves.

The World Health Organization has raised the alert to Stage 4, which means the virus has been observed transferring from human host to human host without an animal intermediary. That's the final step before the WHO declares a pandemic.

Any individual should respond to this development with vigilance, not panic. In a fortuitously timed series on pandemics, planned long before the current flu outbreaks, the state Department of Health has urged Hawai'i residents to think seriously about how to minimize their own risk and make contingency plans for maintaining their families' well-being should the virus migrate to the Islands.

Dr. Chiyome Fukino, state health director, said in her department's televised series that self-sufficiency of households is the best way to inoculate the state against a protracted health crisis. She's right: While the public health system gears up with antiviral doses and treatment protocols, the onus is on the rest of us to prepare coping strategies.

Among the proactive steps: