ATLANTA (AP) – The swine flu virus that has frightened the world is beginning to look a little less ominous.

New York City officials reported Friday that the swine flu still has not spread beyond a few schools. In Mexico, very few relatives of flu victims seem to have caught the virus.

And one flu expert says there’s no reason to believe the new virus is a more serious strain than seasonal flu.

It’s too soon to draw any definitive conclusions about what this variation of the H1N1 virus will do. But a federal health official said the new flu virus doesn’t appear to have genes that made the 1918 pandemic flu strain so deadly.