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900 Absent With Flu-Like Symptoms At 1 High School

Treyfish

Treyfish

Moderator
Oct 20, 2009 2:39 pm US/Central


About 40 Percent Of Students At St. Charles East Call In Sick

ST. CHARLES, Ill (CBS) ―
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More than 900 students were out sick with flu-like symptoms at St. Charles East High School, administrators said on Tuesday.

More than 700 students called in sick on Monday. The school enrolls about 2,100 kids, meaning about 40 percent of the student body stayed home from class today.

Administrators do not know if the students are suffering from H1N1 or some other virus because they do not ask specifically about symptoms when students or their parents call in sick.

It is believed to be the biggest outbreak of flu-like illness in the Chicago area since the school year began.

Right now, the school plans to remain open during the outbreak.

"St. Charles East High School reported a higher than normal rate of absences for this time of year with many reports of flu-like symptoms," the school said in a statement on its website.

"District 303 is following the guidelines regarding H1N1 from the Centers for Disease Control and the Kane County Health Department. Those guidelines recommend that schools should remain open even though flu-like illnesses are present."
:tiphat:http://cbs2chicago.com/local/flu.school.sick.2.1259960.html
 
Re: 900 Absent With Flu-Like Symptoms At 1 High School

Oct 21, 2009 5:09 am US/Central
School Shuts Down After Major Flu Outbreak

972 Students At St. Charles East Call In Sick; School To Close Tomorrow And May Not Reopen Until Monday

ST. CHARLES, Ill (CBS) ―
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</DD><DD>A suburban high school is now shut down after more than 900 students were out sick with flu-like symptoms on Tuesday, school officials said.

St. Charles East High School will be closed, starting Wednesday and won't re-open until Monday at the earliest. All extra-curricular activities and athletic events have also been canceled beginning Wednesday.

More than 700 students called in sick on Monday. The school enrolls about 2,100 kids, meaning about 40 percent of the student body stayed home from class today.

Administrators do not know if the students are suffering from H1N1 or some other virus because they do not ask specifically about symptoms when students or their parents call in sick.

It is believed to be the biggest outbreak of flu-like illness in the Chicago area since the school year began.

"The high level of absences is beginning to impact normal school operations," the school said on its website.

"Extra-curricular activities for Tuesday, October 20th will go forward as scheduled. All athletic extra-curricular and parent night activities scheduled Wednesday through Friday are postponed until further notice."

CBS 2's Derrick Blakley spoke with some of the sick students.

Brittany Brueske, 17, a senior, has been home sick for two days, missing her senior year classes.

"I started getting a cough and fever. My mom didn't want me to go to school with a fever, so I stayed home," said Brueske.

Freshman Amanda Mueller went to school, but didn't stay long. She was sent home with a note from the school nurse.

"I didn't think it was that bad this morning, but the nurse said that I have to go home., that my fever's too high. It's just above 100," said Mueller.

"We want parents to make the choice of keeping their child home if they're running a fever or have flu-like symptoms," said Dr. Don Schlomann, superintendent of District 303 schools.

It was Dr. Schlomann who made the choice to shut the school for the rest of the week because it was tough to schedule classes with so few students around.

"My algebra class had seven people in it," said Mueller. "It normally has 15."

"Yes, because so many people were missing, we weren't getting anything accomplished," said student Bridget Mitchell.

Sick cases range from colds to bronchitis to flu.

"It's not only about protecting everybody, but it's also about reducing that ability to spread," Dr. Schlomann said.

One of the few staffers who was in the building Tuesday night said they're bringing in crews from other parts of the district to clean the school, all in the name of safety, even though something like flu lives just hours outside a host.

St. Charles East played its homecoming football game this weekend in rainy, cold weather. And the homecoming dance was this weekend, too. Officials believe these mass gatherings may have helped spread the bug.

Sophomore Nick Gruffino was at the game but left sick, after just 10 minutes.

"I was sweating, overheating and my mom was worried. No one leaves a high school football game because they're a little sick," said Gruffino, who missed school Monday and Tuesday.

The flu has spread so fast, entire St. Charles households are affected, with several families feeling the effects on the Brueske's block alone.

"I never thought I was gonna get, but I guess I was wrong," said Gruffino. "Now almost half our school has it."

CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman reports that the St. Charles East High School campus was busy Tuesday evening with soccer. They got the games in just in time.

"When tonight's event is over, we're gonna shut down," said Jerry Krieg, St. Charles East's Athletic Director.

Parent Janet Lyon who came out to watch her healthy son play soccer Tuesday night thinks the school has to do what it's doing.

When asked if there has ever been a time when this many students called in sick, Lyon said, "Not even close. This is definitely unchartered territory."

Could some of the sick calls be part of a student prank?

"If you would have been with me this afternoon and walked into the health department, you would have concluded that it's probably not a prank," Dr. Schlomann said.

One junior was so concerned, he got flu vaccinations this morning.

Other District 303 schools remain open. Only St. Charles East will be closed Wednesday through Friday.

Friday night's football game featuring crosstown rivals St. Charles East and St. Charles North has been postponed, a casualty of the flu wave.

The school will be calling each and every student over the next three days to gauge general health.
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Re: 900 Absent With Flu-Like Symptoms At 1 High School

Outbreak subsiding at St. Charles East High; flu not main problem
By James Fuller | Daily Herald Staff
Published: 10/22/2009 5:57 PM​
The outbreak of sick students at St. Charles East High School is over, or at least tapering off, school and health department officials said Thursday. And when the last box of tissue is put away, data may prove the majority of sick students didn't even have the flu.


Phone calls made by high school teachers to sick students and their parents on Thursday showed only about 26 percent (about 569 students) of students at the school still felt too ill to come to school. That's an improvement over Wednesday when 34 percent of the student body said they were still sick. The high point for the outbreak was about 45 percent of the student body on Tuesday.



"We're obviously moving in a very positive direction," District 303 Superintendent Don Schlomann said.


Given the improvement, the district plans to reopen the high school on Monday. Extracurricular activity will kick back into action even before that. Athletic practices will resume Friday afternoon. The football game at home against St. Charles North will be played Saturday, along with the boys' soccer game and the first showing of the fall play. Students will make up for the lost days of school by having a fall quarter that will extend to Nov. 4, with standardized testing slated for Nov. 10.


Phone calls to check on the health status of students will continue Friday, as will the data collection on the nature of the illnesses by the Kane County Health Department. One of the mysteries of the outbreak is why other schools in the district, including schools where siblings of East High School students attend, didn't see a similar outbreak. The district has seen some spikes of absenteeism up to 14 percent in some of its other schools, but those numbers are also dropping.


Kane County Health Department Executive Director Paul Kuehnert said preliminary data show less than 10 percent of students saying they were sick had symptoms that fit the strict definition of the flu. Another 15 percent or so of the sick students had symptoms indicating some other respiratory illnesses, such as bronchitis. Then, at least another 25 percent of the ill students experienced gastrointestinal problems that included vomiting. The remaining 50 percent were absent due to what Kuehnert described as a "variety of other causes."


"There may have been an element of parents keeping children home out of a sense of wanting to be precautionary," Kuehnert said. "The bottom line is flu contributed to this, but it wasn't the core cause. There weren't 900 and something students at St. Charles East with H1N1."


Schlomann said, despite some fear mongering, there is no evidence indicating mold issues at the school in the past have resurfaced and caused any of the illnesses. Mold problems at the high school earlier this decade sparked lawsuits and $28 million of cleanup and infrastructure changes. Now, all of the district's schools are tested every year for mold."
"Clearly with the (illness) issues that we had here, most of them were gastrointestinal," Schlomann said. "Those aren't mold issues. We continue to have no concerns with regard to air quality at East High School."


The health department expects to issue a final report on the findings on Monday. That's the same day the county will make the first round of H1N1 vaccinations available to people in the high-risk group for that strain of the flu. Generally, the high-risk group is anyone 24 and younger. There are about 192,000 Kane County residents who fall into the category. About 12,000 vaccinations will be available at three sites Monday, including St. Charles North High School. Kuehnert said the three sites will have an equal amount of doses despite the possibility of increased interest at the St. Charles site because of the illness outbreak. People who have been tested for H1N1 and had a confirmed positive result have lifetime immunity from H1N1 and do not need to receive the vaccination. The county has 17,000 total doses on hand now. Officials expect to receive more doses as soon as next week.



"There will be enough vaccine for everyone, but it will take some time," Kuehnert said.



http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=331062
 
Re: 900 Absent With Flu-Like Symptoms At 1 High School

Sorry, but I'm not completely convinced - Niko. From the Lancet study, see http://download.thelancet.com/images/journalimages/0140-6736/PIIS0140673609615117.gr1.lrg.jpg full paper here: The Lancet, Volume 374, Issue 9690, Page 605, 22 August 2009
Health Department: No flu outbreak in SC

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<!--p--> <!-- Article Publsih Date --> October 31, 2009

<!-- Article By Line --> From Staff Reports
<!-- Article's First Paragraph --> <!-- BlogBurst ContentStart --> ST. CHARLES -- The Kane County Health Department made official Friday what they have been saying unofficially: there was no outbreak of H1N1 flu at St. Charles East High School.

A report issued by the Health Department says while the flu virus is circulating throughout Kane County, less than 10 percent of those students who reported illness on Oct. 19 and 20 actually had flu-like symptoms.

By the end of the day on Oct. 20, a Tuesday, there were more than 900 students who either stayed home with symptoms of illness or were sent home after reporting to the nurse's office during the day. At that point, St. Charles officials decided to close school for the rest of the week.

After investigation by St. Charles East staff and the Health Department, the department concluded that the absenteeism "likely was due to a combination of several different causes of illness in conjunction with non-illness-related absences."

Paul Kuehnert, Health Department executive director, said the reason for the student absences was not swine flu.

The report says that: About 8 percent of students reported flu-like symptoms; about 20 percent reported respiratory illness that was not flu-like; about 22 percent reported gastrointestinal illness; about 50 percent reported a variety of symptoms. (:confused: )

By Friday, of the 1,785 students contacted, 85 percent reported no illness, while 259 reported they would not have attended school if school were in session.

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/1856315,2_1_AU31_STCHAS_S1-091031.article
 
Re: 900 Absent With Flu-Like Symptoms At 1 High School

I sent an email to the Kane County Health Dept....

I just read news articles and your health department’s reports on the high absenteeism at St. Charles East High School. Please take a few moments to read a paper published in the Lancet regarding atypical H1N1 flu symptoms. It can be found here: Going by typical H1N1 symptoms in kids not enough: Lancet http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=122772&highlight=Birmingham

Also, I urge you to read the CDC’s technical report found here: http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/schools/technicalreport.htm
Active screening for illness
If influenza severity increases, schools should consider instituting active fever and respiratory infection symptom screening of students and staff when they arrive at school. At the beginning of the school day, all students and staff should be asked about suggestive symptoms such as fever, cough, runny nose, and sore throat during the previous 24 hours. Some persons with laboratory-confirmed influenza do not have a fever (between 10% and 40% of people). Therefore, absence of fever does not indicate absence of infection. In a higher severity situation, schools should send home persons with symptoms of acute respiratory infection (that is, any two of the following: sore throat, cough, runny nose [new and unexplained by allergies], or fever). As always, parents should be aware of their child’s health status and monitor them for illness every morning before school.
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