It’s work that could help provide important clues to a “novel” disease of near-pandemic proportions that exhibits changes that so far have experts around the world guessing.

“This investigation that we’re doing here is crucial to understanding how this virus (spreads),” Magnan said.

She said despite tests on others, the person confirmed today as having the “novel H1N1 influenza” is still the only “probable” case found in the state.

The commissioner spoke at a press conference in Cold Spring this morning after a meeting with state and local officials. The town is home to Rocori Middle School, with which officials say the person with the new flu is “associated.”

“There will be more cases,” Gov. Tim Pawlenty predicted, repeating a warning that State Epidemiologist Dr. Ruth Lynfield made yesterday. But he said officials are certain of very little because of the unpredictable “wave phenomenon” attributed to the disease.

The governor was careful not to reveal information about the infected person, who he said “may not be a student” at Rocori Middle School. The school will remain closed for seven days, he said, in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevenetion recommendations.

The board at neighboring St. Boniface Elementary School, which like the middle school was closed yesterday and today, will decide this afternoon whether to remain closed.

Rocori High School, site of a fatal school shooting incident in 2003, isn’t affected. “We don’t have any concern about elementary or high school (infections),” said Rocori Superintendent Scott Staska.

Asked about testing of the infected person’s family, Magnan answered only that that was part of the investigation.

Magnan, who said she arrived late at the press conference because she had been in a bathroom following her own advice about washing hands thoroughly, offered this declaration: “We are ready. We are ready as a state. We are ready as a region.”

One way the state is more ready than it was yesterday at this time: “All swine influenza (Web) pages were updated to reflect the new name of H1N1 novel influenza,” according to an e-mail from the Minnesota Department of Health sent Wednesday at 7:02 p.m.

Google’s motto, “Don’t be evil,” is close enough to Hippocrates’ “First, do no harm.” But trust national health policy to a search engine?

As of this morning, Google Trends, the search-term tracking tool on which this medical breakthrough is based, also reports that the name of ancient comedian “Don Rickles” is the third-most frequently searched phrase in the United States, while “Lucy Pinder,” a British model popular for posing nude, ranks sixth. Drilling down, you discover that the wrinkled Rickles and the Photoshop-smoothed Pinder share the same “Hotness” rating: Mild. And below that, Google Trends says Don Rickles’ peak was seven hours ago. (OK, he was on Jay Leno last night but still, we’re talking decades, not hours.)

If we can’t trust Google Trends on celebs, do we really want to give them the keys to the Centers for Disease Control?

Google users whose searches lead them to the Minnesota Independent don’t tend to cluster around trendy topics like Don Rickles, Lucy Pinder or the flu. For example, at one point this morning, the second-most commonly searched string that brought readers the MnIndy (after “Minnesota Independent”) was “smiley-face killer,” a story that peaked six months ago, but apparently still piques interest among the erudite.

What I’d like Google to explain is why someone in Moscow visited MnIndy this morning after a search for “steller franken.” I’m more worried about that than the flu.