Ethiopian Review

Schools across the USA should close this fall only if “high numbers” of students come down with the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, top federal officials said Friday.

Schools’ first line of defense against the illness? Frequent hand washing, “coughing etiquette,” routine cleaning and close monitoring of symptoms.

In schools where students show symptoms, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, educators should set aside a room for kids — “a safe place for them to stay” until they’re picked up to go home.

The new guidance, issued Friday in Washington by Duncan and top health officials, represents a change from last spring, when more than 700 schools, acting on guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), closed temporarily.

The new guidelines also shave the recommended time that ill students should be kept out of school, from one week to 24 hours after their fever subsides.

The new timeline is “more practical,” said CDC Director Thomas Frieden. But he added that if the virus becomes more deadly, schools should begin screening people as they come through schoolhouse doors, consider sitting kids farther apart and adopting staggered school dismissal times to cut down on contact.

Frieden said an H1N1 vaccine, expected by mid-October, “so far looks like it will be a good match” with the strain that’s circulating.” Most children will require two doses separated by three weeks, he said.

Duncan said schools could serve as mass vaccination sites this fall if swine flu makes a strong comeback. The typical public school is “a natural location” for vaccinations on a large scale. “It’s where our students are.”

Last spring, when the swine flu first struck, federal health officials advised schools with suspected cases to shut down for about two weeks. After investigators found that the bug was milder than expected, the CDC said parents should keep infected children home for a week instead.

At a swine flu summit last month, Duncan said closing schools should be “a last resort, not a first resort.” On Friday, he added, “We absolutely hope that no schools will have to close, but in reality some schools will have to close this fall.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the new guidelines echo that thinking. “Only schools with high numbers of high-risk students — should consider closure,” she said, adding that closing a school, even temporarily, “causes a very significant ripple effect” in the community.

She warned that keeping kids home from school means that students should stay home to recuperate. “We do not want kids going to the mall or anywhere else,” she said. “We want to reduce transmission” of the flu bug.

Duncan on Friday also said educators should figure out how to keep students learning if schools must close for extended periods. “Educators will have to start thinking now about having temporary home-school plans in place,” he said. He promised to give school districts as much flexibility as possible under federal rules on average daily student attendance.

After attending a Thursday briefing on the new guidelines, Amy Garcia, executive director of the National Association of School Nurses, said she was “really pleased at the collaboration of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education and the Department of Homeland Security. We think that will go a long way toward there being much more consistent messaging to parents.”

The cooperation “will reduce some of the confusion” that schools and families experienced last spring around school closures and home confinements for sick children.

Frieden, who until last June was commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said researchers have learned a lot since last spring about how the flu spreads. New York City saw cases in hundreds of schools, but closed only about 50.

“Perhaps we would have closed fewer if we had known then what we know now,” he said.

- By Greg Toppo | USA TODAY