It was a sight I won't easily forget.

As a medical reporter, I'm used to being in hospitals and even in intensive care units. It's part of my job.

But seeing pregnant women hooked up to life support, desperately trying to fight off the effects of swine flu in the grip of the 2009 pandemic, was confronting.

This disease affected people who don't often get the flu, afflicting young adults whose previously healthy lungs became white and cloudy with pneumonia.

While most recovered, many did not.

By the end of 2009, more than 37,000 Australians had been diagnosed with swine flu.

More than 190 people were dead.

Worldwide, the US Centres for Disease Control estimates swine flu killed as many as 575,000 people. Eighty per cent of them were under 65.

The facts

Let's contrast the swine flu epidemic with the spread of the novel coronavirus — or COVID-19 as it is now known.

The new virus is sweeping through parts of China and infecting small numbers all over the world.

It began in China's Hubei province, where it remains in epidemic proportions and is without doubt a serious public health emergency.

Hubei's capital Wuhan, which is home to more than 11 million people, is in lockdown. ( Wikimedia Commons )

COVID-19 has now spread to more than 20 countries, including Australia.

Along with the spread of the virus has been the wave of misinformation on social media about how the illness is transmitted.

Fake news telling people they could contract coronavirus from contaminated food or packages from China prompted Australian health authorities to do some myth-busting.

While there was some misinformation online about swine flu — no, it didn't come from eating pork — it's nothing like what's being said about COVID-19.

NSW chief medical officer Kerry Chant told the public to ignore "false and misleading rumours, posts on social media and inaccurate reports" about the coronavirus and instead to seek reputable sources for information, such as Health Department websites.

But despite pleas for calm, what we have seen with COVID-19 is a public response to the threat that at times seems quite out of proportion to what is actually happening here.

In Australia, there have been fewer than 20 confirmed cases. Not one has ended up in intensive care.

Patients have been quarantined in hospital wards or told to self-isolate for 14 days.

Of those kept in hospital, many were well enough to go home.

Comparisons to terrorism

There's no doubt that the strong public health measures taken at state, territory and federal levels have worked in containing the outbreak and stopping it from spreading.

This includes the China travel bans, which were extended last week — something a leading Australian virologist said he'd never thought he'd see in his lifetime.

Yet, since the outbreak, Australians from Asian backgrounds have faced open discrimination and harassment.

Shops and restaurants in areas with higher concentrations of Asian populations have been deserted, as Australians panic-buy masks and hand sanitiser to protect themselves.

So, if the response from Australia's public health leaders has been effective — and it has — why is the public so scared?

That could be due in part to the strong language used by international health experts.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned a vaccine was at least 18 months away, and that the outbreak could pose a "very grave threat" with consequences greater "than any terrorist attack".

Professor Kanta Subbara, the director of WHO's Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza, said the most worrying thing was how easily the virus spread from person to person.

She said closing borders in China was an "unprecedented and draconian measure", which would probably only delay the disease's spread by a couple of days rather than completely halt it.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 31 seconds 31 s WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says COVID-19 should be viewed as "public enemy number one".

Existing anxieties heighten fears

There will be important lessons learned from how the public responds to this outbreak, Public Health Association of Australia president Terry Slevin said.

"The rapidly changing information and almost hourly updates in everyone's news feeds on the changing number of cases and deaths keeps highlighting what a big outbreak this is," he said.

"What we haven't been as good at, is to separate out the number of cases in China compared to Australia.

"When people hear the 'deadly coronavirus', they think it's happening here."

Remember too, he said, that even before COVID-19, many Australians were already feeling anxious.

After unprecedented bushfires and smoke-filled skies, many of us were unsettled.

"With that heightened sense of anxiety, people will feel threatened."

China says its sweeping efforts to contain COVID-19 are working. ( Reuters: Bobby Yip )

When swine flu hit our shores, the public largely had confidence that health authorities were doing all they could to minimise the risk.

This time, the measures are more drastic. With things like quarantine and travel bans in place to stem the spread of COVID-19, Australians can feel relatively reassured.

People who have contracted COVID-19 here have had a mild illness.

Experts call for cautious optimism

"Currently, we are safe," said Queensland virologist Ian Mackay.

"When travel restrictions come off, that could change, so we have some time to think about how we wash our hands, that we should stop touching our face so frequently to prevent the risk of self-inoculation," Professor Mackay said.

UNSW virologist Bill Rawlinson from UNSW believes we should feel "cautiously optimistic, yet remain vigilant".

"It's too early to breathe a sigh of relief," Professor Rawlinson said.

"But the signs are that there is a decrease in the cases coming out of China.

"We are not seeing groups like pregnant women affected by COVID-19 like we did from swine flu."

Another enduring memory of swine flu was when I interviewed a woman in her early 40s whose otherwise healthy husband died from the disease on a flight back from London.

What everyone regarded a mild illness had killed a healthy man in the prime of his life.

As we filmed her leafing through their wedding album, her tears flowed. She was inconsolable.

So far, we haven't seen that kind of devastation here in Australia with COVID-19.

And we can take comfort in the fact local authorities are doing their level best to ensure we don't.