All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

This weekend President Barack Obama declared the H1N1 outbreak a national emergency, a move that should help hospitals deal with the surge of patients.

Many people across the country spent their weekend standing in line for hours waiting to get vaccinated against H1N1, and many found that they were too late, turned away when available doses were gone.

As of today, about 16 million doses have been made available. CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton says it is doubtful whether the emergency declaration will have any impact on vaccine production.

On Monday Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius acknowledged the frustration of Americans waiting in lines for vaccinations. "I don't want to minimize the anxiety of a lot of parents who want to get their kids vaccinated, but we do have a vaccine that works.

"It works with everybody over ten years old with one dose, and the immune response hits more quickly than we anticipated, so actually as of today, we'll have about 16.5 million doses available throughout the country."

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A roundtable of health officials stressed the seriousness of the H1N1 influenza strain, but said "encouraging" research and prior planning will hopefully minimize the impact.

"We are starting to see encouraging signs," the acting director of the CDC Dr. Richard Besser told moderator Bob Schieffer on CBS News' Face the Nation.

And, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said, the government is hoping to have a vaccine for the new virus strain by the Fall.

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President Obama began a press conference to mark his 100th day in office with a topic he probably wouldn't have expected a week ago: advising Americans to take "very sensible precautions" against the swine flu but not to "panic."

Mr. Obama appeared as though he was trying to strike a delicate verbal balance between underreaction and overreaction, saying that the federal government was closely coordinating with state and other health officials and suggesting simple precautions such as hand-washing and keeping sick children home from school. "It sounds trivial but it makes a huge difference," he said.

The president also said that it was time for Americans to develop "contingency plans" if school or business closings disrupt their personal lives. "Our public health officials have recommended that schools with confirmed or suspected cases of this flu strongly consider temporarily closing," he said. "And if more schools are forced to close, we've recommended that both parents and businesses think about contingency plans if their children do have to stay home."

The swine flu has caused one confirmed death in the United States so far, and seven confirmed deaths in Mexico. Mexican Health Secretary Jose Cordova says he believes the situation is stabilizing.

Also on Wednesday, the World Health Organization raised its alert level for swine flu -- also being called Mexican Flu or H1N1 flu -- one level on fears that a global pandemic is imminent.