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ALL SWINE & DANDY

Relax. It’s time to wash your hands of swine-flu fears.

The nation’s top public-health official said yesterday there are positive signs that the swine flu is no more severe than garden-variety influenza.

“We’re seeing encouraging signs that this virus, so far, is not looking more severe than a strain we’re seeing during seasonal flu,” Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Besser said swine flu is producing far milder symptoms than the 1918 outbreak of Spanish flu, which killed up to 50 million people.

“What we’ve found is that we’re not seeing the factors that were associated with the 1918 pandemic, and that’s encouraging,” the CDC chief said on the ABC News program “This Week.”

His comments came as Mexico’s health secretary, José Angel Cordova, said that the outbreak has peaked in his country and is declining.

Cordova said the virus, which has killed 22 people in Mexico — not the 150 initially reported — and sickened at least 568, reached a peak between April 23 and April 28.

“The evolution of the epidemic is now in its declining phase,” he said.

Overseas, however, fears were still running rampant:

* The World Health Organization warned that history shows the virus has the potential to come back in the fall.

“I would like to remind people that in 1918, the Spanish flu showed a surge in the spring and then disappeared in the summer months — only to return in the autumn of 1918 with a vengeance,” said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl.

* In Hong Kong, 300 people were quarantined in a hotel after the arrival of a Mexican visitor infected with swine flu.

* In Egypt, pig owners clashed with cops trying to seize their animals for slaughter as a precaution against the illness.

World health officials reported 1,000 swine-flu cases with 23 deaths in 19 countries.

The CDC reported 245 cases in 35 US states with one death, a 22-month-old child who had traveled from Mexico. The federal health agency says 36,000 people die of the regular flu each year.

In New York state, there are 96 confirmed and probable cases, said the state’s health commissioner, Dr. Richard Daines.

One new probable case was reported in Syracuse, forcing the closure of an elementary school there.

There are 62 confirmed cases in the Big Apple and 17 probable ones, for a total of 79.

About 800,000 to 1 million New York residents catch the flu every year, depending on the severity of the flu season.

In Suffolk County, the Deer Park school system decided to shut its six schools from today through Sunday after three students were found to have probable cases of swine flu. The schools have a total of 4,400 students.

On the other hand, St. Francis prep, in Queens, the center of the swine-flu outbreak in the city, prepared to open its doors today after shutting them last Monday.

The rain and swine-flu fears limited turnout to only 200 people at the Cinco de Mayo parade down Central Park West yesterday. Thousands turned out last year.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens) called on airlines not to charge fees to passengers who delay travel because of swine-flu symptoms.

With Amber Sutherland, Mathew Nestel and Post Wires

andy.geller@nypost.com