Ontario residents should not panic over swine flu because the province's public health system is in a strong position to react thanks to its experiences with the deadly SARS outbreak in 2003, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday.

"First of all, stay calm," McGuinty said. "There's a real concern here, there's no doubt about that, but it's not a cause for undue alarm."

There were still no World Health Organization confirmed cases of swine flu in Ontario, and only six mild cases in all of Canada — four in Nova Scotia and two in British Columbia. Alberta health officials say they have two cases in that province.

Health officials said it's only a matter of time before cases start turning up in Ontario, where up to 12 suspected cases of swine flu are under investigation.

McGuinty insisted the province was well-prepared for any potential pandemic because of the changes made following a commission that studied the way the SARS outbreak was handled.

"I want to reassure our families that … all of our public health officials, and our doctors and nurses, are working hard and well together, executing a plan we have put in place drawing on the painful lessons that we learned six years ago," he said.

"We have a new plan, we have more resources, we have more personnel, more technology, more know-how and a better understanding of how to deal with these kinds of things."

The SARS outbreak in the spring of 2003 claimed 44 lives in the Greater Toronto Area and made hundreds more sick. It prompted major changes in the way public health officials react to possible outbreaks.

One key improvement was the creation of an integrated public health information system because doctors literally used sticky notes to relay patient information during the SARS crisis.

A commission into the SARS outbreak suggested the first wave of infections starting in March 2003 was unavoidable but likely could have been controlled more quickly if public health systems for disease surveillance had been in better shape.

As with SARS, health officials say frequent hand washing is essential to help slow the spread of swine flu and they recommend people stay home from work if they are coughing or showing other possible signs of the flu.

McGuinty told the legislature Tuesday that Dr. David Williams, Ontario's acting chief medical officer of health, would update people daily on swine flu "through the media."

However, the government refused to use the legislature's media studio for Williams's briefings, preventing many broadcasters from going live with the information McGuinty promised the public.

The Canadian cases of swine flu are much milder than ones in Mexico, where 152 deaths have been linked to the virus.