Schools prep for tough flu season

H1N1, also known as swine flu, has local schools on the lookout

By Erica Ryberg

The South County Spotlight, Sep 2, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Cover your cough. Get vaccinated. Stay home if you’re sick. And wash your hands.

This is the streamlined message that children and parents at the St. Helens school district and throughout the state will hear in the state’s bid to manage what the World Health Organization is calling a pandemic.

Up to 40 percent of Oregon’s population could grapple with the seasonal and H1N1 flu variants over the next two years, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

With this in mind, the state hosted the Oregon Pandemic H1N1 Summit last Friday to help public officials get ready.

Members of St. Helens leadership gathered in the idle school library to remotely attend the summit and to plan the district’s strategy for preventing illness and possible scenarios ranging from high absentee rates to school closures.

Discussions in St. Helens among school board members, administrators and school nurse Robin Loper centered on enhanced communications, the enforcement of a school policy that sends feverish and obviously sick kids home to recover, as well as the implications of a districtwide school closure, including Web- or phone-based learning and meeting the nutritional needs of low-income students.

“There are two mistakes you can make – ignoring the problem or being over-prepared. You can imagine which I prefer,” school board member David Morrison said.

Preparedness is especially important for school administrators; while both strains of flu cause respiratory symptoms, cough, sore throat, body aches and high fever, H1N1 – also known as swine flu – affects unusual populations. While seasonal flu puts the very old and very young at risk, H1N1 poses the greatest risk to children, young adults, pregnant women and people with heart disease, asthma, obesity and diabetes, said State Epidemiologist Katrina Hedberg during the summit.

Across the nation, 7,983 people have gone to the hospital with H1N1 and 522 have died. In Oregon, there have been 92 hospitalizations and 11 deaths. Unlike seasonal flu deaths, of which there are an average of 36,000 per year, most those who died from H1N1 were under 50.

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