Flu absenteeism high at N.L. schools

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Flu absenteeism high at N.L. schools

Last Updated: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 | 9:13 AM NT

CBC News

Schools on Newfoundland's east coast are seeing signs that the swine flu pandemic is surging.

Many schools reported this week that a lot of students were staying at home because of flu-like symptoms.

Education officials said 70 per cent of the students at one small school on the Burin Peninsula were off sick, while St. Thomas of Villanova in Conception Bay South, near St. John's, reported that 40 per cent of its junior high students were out of class.

Almost half of the school population ? about 300 students ? were reported sick at St. Peter's Junior High in Mount Pearl.

The Eastern School district told CBC News that since Monday, absenteeism rates have been growing, with roughly a third of students staying out of many schools.

The board's director of education, Ford Rice, said the H1N1 virus is spreading faster through the school district than expected.

"It's happening in all areas of the district," he told CBC News. "We're seeing it on the Bonavista Peninsula. We're seeing it in CBS [Conception Bay South] area, as well. It seems that as the week is going by, we are experiencing it throughout the district. What's surprising us, I guess, is that it happened so quickly."

The high number of students who are reporting sickness isn't surprising to the province's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Faith Stratton. "That's what we would have expected when we got to this phase of the pandemic."

Still, parents like Tracie Carter of Conception Bay South are worried.

"Will they have to shut the schools down, I guess, or try to get everybody well before it spreads too much?" she said. The school board said it won't close schools as long as there are enough teachers and staff to run them.

Stratton said health officials advise against parents keeping healthy kids at home.

"At least when the children are in school, we know what's going on and we can look after them, and we're keeping them out of other kinds of areas, where they might be at more of an increased risk."

Emergency staff at the Janeway Children's Hospital in St. John's say they've been run off their feet since Monday, with parents bringing in young people who have flu-like symptoms.

But Eastern Health said none of the children have been admitted.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2009/10/28/nl-flu-schools-281009.html?ref=rss

 

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Re: Flu absenteeism high at N.L. schools

Swine flu likely cause of student illness
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 | 2:39 PM NT Comments6Recommend12.
CBC News
Dr. David Allison, medical health officer for the St. John's region, said Wednesday that swine flu is likely the cause of student illness in parts of Newfoundland. (CBC)A public health doctor says swine flu is most likely to blame for the high number of children being kept home from schools in eastern Newfoundland.

Hundreds of children are home sick throughout the eastern school district, which covers the Avalon Peninsula and parts of the south and northeast coasts of the province.

Dr. David Allison, the medical officer of health for the St. John's region, said Wednesday that according to the number of positive tests for the H1N1 virus that lab workers are seeing, he believes many of the children have come down with the virus.

"The proportion of tests that are positive have gone up dramatically in the last week or so," Allison said. "I would say likely what is going around the schools is H1N1."

Allison said he doesn't believe there's a need to close any schools at this point.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2009/10/28/nl-allison-swine-281009.html

 

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Re: Flu absenteeism high at N.L. schools

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD height=10>Last updated at 1:43 AM on 30/10/09 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Absenteeism in local schools as high as 40-plus per cent
CORNER BROOK
CORY HURLEY
The Western Star

Students throughout the Western School District are continuing to be educated, despite the fact, up to nearly half of their peers are absent.

Jeff Thompson, the district?s assistant director of education, said tracking absent students is part of a response to years of planning that has gone into preparing the district for the pandemic of the H1N1 virus.

The entire district is experiencing an absentee rate elevated to 18 per cent ? 2,200 of the 12,500 students. Thompson estimated the normal rate to be less than 10 per cent.
While those statistics vary throughout the district, there are alarming areas where more than 40 per cent of the school population has been out of school this week. The Corner Brook area itself is at about 23 per cent.

At Templeton Academy in Meadows, the first three days of the week absentee rates have been 41 per cent, 43 per cent and 36 per cent ? approximately 200 students each day. At Corner Brook Regional High, those rates are between 30 and 33 per cent each day.

Thompson also said the upper area of the Northern Peninsula is being impacted severely, as well as between Deer Lake and Stephenville and some pockets in between.
Compounding the problem, the absenteeism for teachers has also increased from about five per cent to 11 per cent. In the Corner Brook area, that numbers rose to 15 per cent.

?Overall, we do have high level of absentee rates and what we are hearing from our teachers and school administrators is the parents calling in are suggesting their children are suffering from suspected H1N1,? he said. ?That seems to be what is mostly recorded, although there are other reasons.?

In a small number of cases, Thompson said parents have been keeping children home as a precaution. While understanding and sharing of their concern, he said that is not what they hope to see done.

?We are all trying to work hard to minimize the spread of this virus until the vaccination protocol is completed,? he said. ?Meantime, schools remain open, and will continue to remain open and we will continue to provide educational services, so we certainly encourage parents of children who are healthy, not presenting any medical challenges, to have them attend school regularly.
?We would certainly support them in their decision to keep them out in the event they are experiencing some medical challenges.?

Meanwhile plans are being put in place to gather the work missed to be sent home for the impacted students to catch up on, if they are able to. Some schools are posting work on its website. However, the schools are also planning measures to help ill students catch up on the work once they return.

?The upside of this is we are early in our school year and have a lot of time on our side to really do the catching up,? Thompson said. ?If this was occurring in April or May and students were out for two or three weeks, there would be only a month left and a little more difficult to catch up.?

Meanwhile, the Department of Education has begun cancelling some extracurricular activities, an example being the Volleyfest tournament in St. John?s this weekend.

?The intent is to try to be proactive in at least slowing down the spread of the virus,? Thomspson said. ?If you have a group of students in an area where there is a heavy infection rate moving to an area it?s not, there is more likelihood that it could get spread.?

http://www.thewesternstar.com/index.cfm?sid=298794&sc=23

 

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Re: Flu absenteeism high at N.L. schools

Worried N.L. parents boost school absenteeism

Last Updated: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 | 4:05 PM NT

CBC News

Parents are keeping healthy children home because they fear they will contract swine flu in class, top officials at central Newfoundland's school board say.

"We had just over 28 per cent absenteeism [Monday]. One-third of the students were reported being ill and two-thirds of the absentees were not ill," said the director of the Nova Central School District, Cindy Fleet.

Fleet said she's fielding many calls from parents asking whether children should stay home to avoid catching the flu. She said that despite the spread of H1N1 influenza, school is going ahead as usual.

Children with swine flu symptoms are being asked to stay home.
Fleet said she doesn't know when the H1N1 vaccines will be available for school children in the central Newfoundland region.

Health Canada's list of H1N1 influenza symptoms

Almost always:

• Cough and fever

Common:

• Fatigue
• Muscle aches
• Sore throat
• Headache
• Decreased appetite
• Runny nose

Sometimes:

• Nausea
• Vomitting
• Diarrhea

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundla.../11/03/nl-central-absentees-1102.html?ref=rss