SAN DIEGO -- The county's chief health official said Thursday she expects to see more deaths in San Diego from swine flu, but said residents shouldn't panic and encouraged them to take precautions.

"Since the height of the H1N1 epidemic and with the first U.S. death, we have tried to prepare the community that we expect to see deaths associated with this virus," said Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county's public health officer.

On Monday, an apparently healthy 20-year-old woman became the first person to die from swine flu-related complications in San Diego County.

Tests on a second person that health officials suspected as having died from swine flu complications came back negative for H1N1, according to Wooten.

There have been 63 deaths from swine flu in the United States, including eight deaths in California, according to Wooten. A middle-aged man died of the disease today in Contra Costa County, she said.

"We again urge people not to panic about H1N1 influenza," Wooten said. "While it is a novel, or a new virus, (and) people have no immunity to this virus, it is not a highly contagious virus as we saw with the measles last year.

"I repeat that H1N1 virus is not highly contagious," she said. "However, people should still take the necessary precautions to protect themselves."

Those precautions include frequent hand washing, covering your mouth when coughing or sneezing, and staying home from work or school if you become sick, Wooten said.

To put the recent death in perspective, Wooten said about 36,000 people die in the U.S. every year from the seasonal flu virus.