The Pita Pit owner and operator Kristi Grob has a lot on her plate as she looks to grow her small business. "I have a lot of high school and college kids that work a couple days a week," said Grob. But Grob and many other small business owners like her now have a new responsibility to add to an already busy to do list, trying to avoid a significant hit from H1N1.

"Businesses that have a lot of healthy young workers could see absenteeism developing in a significant number of their employees," said St. Vincent Healthcare Dr. Frederick Kahn.

This week the national government released an H1N1 preparedness guide to help small businesses prevent the spread of the virus. Officials say one of the biggest tips they have is let someone stay home if they're sick. "We hope the employers take a little more enlightened attitude because it could boomerang on them one sick individual could spread it to the rest of the work place to," said Kahn.

Grob says that won't be a problem. "If we have to go short will go short," she said. But the tips did get her thinking of other ways to curb the threat. "I was researching online what other restaurants are doing to combat H1N1 and one of the ways was to put hand sanitizer out," said Grob, who believes if all small business owners do their part ahead of time, this winter they can worry less about the virus and get back to business as usual.