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MARCO WERMAN: In Hong Kong, several hundred guests and staff at the Metropark Hotel were very happy to check out today. They'd been quarantined there for the past week, after a Mexican guest was diagnosed with swine flu. Upon leaving the hotel today, a South Korean businessman reportedly broke into song and hugged a policeman. Still, the H1N1 swine flu virus has health authorities on edge around the world. Today, Canada reported its first death from the disease. And the hardest hit country outside of North America – Spain – is reporting at least 88 cases. Spanish scientists are watching the virus closely. They're trying to answer some basic questions about this strain of flu. The World's Gerry Hadden reports from Barcelona.

GERRY HADDEN: Spanish epidemiologist Antoni Trilla is leading Spain's investigation into this new H1N1 virus – and he's overwhelmed. Today, he's rushing from his office to his lab, then to the hospital where nearly 2 dozen people are sick with swine flu. His goal? To understand how easily it can spread. Information about the virus is coming in so fast that Trilla has had to dedicate one of his full-time researchers just to reading the news online.

ANTONI TRILLA: On Twitter, on Google, whatever it is. And then make a summary for us, because if not, we are absolutely lost.

HADDEN: Trilla is collecting data that he hopes will determine a fundamental characteristic of the virus. It's called the reproductive number. That's a measure of how easily and quickly the virus spreads from person to person. A reproductive number of 1 means that, on average, each infected person infects just one other person. Inside the hospital's busy lab, Trilla explains that some viruses are hard to control. They have very high basic reproductive numbers.

TRILLA: Things like for example small pox or another virus infection can get positive numbers up to 7, 8, 10, even to 12.

HADDEN: The common flu, he says, is generally in the range of 1 to 2. Meaning each person is likely to infect one to two others.

TRILLA: We believe this virus will be in this margin— 1 and a half, maybe 2. But we need more time to assess exactly what is the basic reproductive number of the virus.

HADDEN: There's a lot riding on the answer, because hospitals and health authorities use that reproductive number to craft containment policies. So Trilla and others in Spain are watching closely to see just how the virus moves from one person to the next. Spanish college student Elena Munoz is among those who have been under supervision. She told Spanish TV that she returned two weeks ago from spring break in Mexico. She said three of her friends caught the swine flu while there and were visibly ill on the plane home. But the other 11 in Munoz's group have not fallen sick, despite flying for several hours in close proximity to the ill. That would seem to indicate that the virus needs very close contact to spread. Spain has just one case of swine flu so far in someone who did not travel to Mexico. That patient is the significant other of someone who did get sick in Mexico. Trilla says the evidence so far is reassuring. It suggests the virus's reproductive number is low. And, as in other parts of the world, doctors here are hoping to reduce the spread even more by tracking down anyone who may have become infected and ensuring they don't infect anyone else.

TRILLA: People who are at the same school, at the same plane, or work at the same office are the responsibility of the public health authorities that makes list of this possible contacts. They make a risk prediction of how much they get involved with the patient, and then makes a decision of treating them or isolating them or whatever it is.

HADDEN: Trilla says he thinks this virus will remain mild as it runs its course. But he cautions that any virus is a moving target. As it mutates, it could become more virulent. For The World, I'm Gerry Hadden, in Barcelona.

WERMAN: The swine flu outbreak is serious business, but political cartoonists around the globe are still finding plenty of comic relief in pigs and face masks. Check out our latest swine flu cartoon slideshow at theworld.org

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