With just more than two months before the start of the Vancouver Olympics, the security threats for very specific attacks are well beyond code orange.

"(This is) still probably one of the biggest things that concern me," Bud Mercer, assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and head of the Integrated Security Unit, told The Associated Press.

With the Mounties already on high alert, only the best measure of defense has been ordered: more and more vials.

The Olympic Committee has done the math and the peak of the flu season in British Columbia is February. Good thing the first competitions for the 2010 Olympics aren't until ... oh, wait Feb. 12 is right in the heart of the epidemic.

So more than 3 million extra doses of antiviral drugs have been ordered since April, bringing the total for the Games to nearly 10 million, according to notes obtained by the AP through an Access to Information request.

The World Health Organization, which in June tabbed H1N1 (or the Swine Flu) as an official pandemic, is on the case, sending extra monitors to Vancouver in case of emergency.

For the record, there were 188 cases of the flu reported at the Salt Lake Games in 2002 and so few to count at the Torino Games in 2006.

But that was before the word "pandemic" was being battered about.

"Even with the injections and the boosters and everything else that comes with it, (H1N1 is) still probably one of the biggest things that concern me," Mercer said.

So now you've got security most worried about something so small it can sneak through the gates attached to the pocketed handkerchief of a French skating judge.

The good news is that medical officers in Vancouver aren't concerned.

"If the vaccination rate is high enough, I don't think H1N1 is going to be a risk," said Dr. Patricia Daly, chief medical health officer for Vancouver Coastal Health, the agency overseeing health services for the Olympics.

The bad news is that the Olympic village is an influenza breeding ground, a virtual viral haven for H1N1 to lay in wait for its next victims.

Ask any one of the Region's coaches that lost parts or entire teams during the fall competition to the flu. These are players who are together so often share germs just like they share a locker room.

At Highland, the girls basketball team has grown accustomed to disinfecting everything from balls to water bottles in attempts to avoid the flu.

So will an extra 3 million vials of antiviral really be enough?

"I can't imagine levels of absenteeism from influenza -- whether it's seasonal or from H1N1 -- being so high you couldn't operate the games," said Dr. Perry Kendall, the B.C. provincial health officer.

Just wait until the first time Matt Lauer sneezes on Bode Miller.

This column solely represents the writer's opinion. Reach her at hillary.smith@nwi.com.