"Public Health Emergency" (which sounds worse than what it is) declared in US because of Swine Flu

Action today from the Obama administration on the swine flu:

At a White House news conference, Besser and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sought to assure Americans that health officials are taking all appropriate steps to minimize the impact of the outbreak.

Top among those is declaring the public health emergency. As part of that, Napolitano said roughly 12 million doses of the drug Tamiflu will be moved from a federal stockpile to places where states can quickly get their share if they decide they need it. Priority will be given to the five states with known cases so far: California, Texas, New York, Ohio and Kansas.

Napolitano called the emergency declaration standard operating procedure — one was declared recently for the inauguration and for flooding. She urged people to think of it as a "declaration of emergency preparedness."

It sure sounds worse than that.

For up-to-date information from public health experts, check out the blog, Effect Measure.

UPDATE @ 4:16 PM: Concise explanation of "public health emergency" from Effect Measure:

DHHS has declared a "public health emergency," a legal designation that permits certain public health resources like a portion of the 50 million courses of antivirals in the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) to be prepositioned in the states should the need arise.