VA:
Beach school to close while students recuperate
By Marquita Smith
The Virginian-Pilot
October 14, 2009
VIRGINIA BEACH
http://hamptonroads.com/2009/10/virginia-beach-school-close-while-students-recuperate
After 80 students stayed home sick on Tuesday, St. Matthew’s School Principal Barbara White decided it was best to close the parochial school for an extra day to give the students a chance to recuperate.
“We have lost the battle... but we are determined to win the war! Due to a high number of ill children, we will be closing school on Thursday,” she wrote in a letter to parents.
Not many of those cases are confirmed as the swine flu, White said Tuesday evening. But sickly students, who had some kind of flu or other illness with a fever, have been encouraged to stay home.
More than 500 students attend the Catholic school, which offers 3-year-old preschool through eigh th grade. The school closed for a similar reason a few years ago when there was an outbreak of the stomach flu.
St. Matthew’s is scheduled to close Friday for a teacher’s meeting. Closing Thursday, too, allows a four-day cleansing period. Custodians will have time to come in and scrub the place down, she said.
In her note to parents, White wrote: “Please have our children rest and recuperate so that we may start fresh on Monday. Thank you for your help and cooperation.”
VA:
Beach schools announce swine flu vaccinations
By Lauren Roth
The Virginian-Pilot
October 15, 2009
VIRGINIA BEACH
http://hamptonroads.com/2009/10/beach-schools-announce-swine-flu-vaccinations
In an unprecedented undertaking, Beach public schools will vaccinate as many as 79,500 students and staff members against swine flu beginning next week.
“We’re trying to get an immunity established in the school,” said Mary Shaw, who coordinates health services and nursing for the 85 Beach schools and specialty centers. Individual schools have started to see small numbers of flu cases. “It will continue to increase until we vaccinate the kids,” she said.
The typical case is much like the seasonal flu, with three to four days of symptoms including fever, aches, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, chills and fatigue, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
Eight Virginians have died of rare complications from the H1N1 influenza, also known as swine flu.
Unlike the seasonal flu, school-age children are at higher risk of complications, Shaw said. That’s why vaccinations are important, she said.
City health department nurses and a team of school division nurses have been tapped to prepare for mass vaccinations during the school day, beginning Wednesday. All school clinics will remain open during the vaccinations, Shaw said.
Parents or guardians must sign a consent form for the free vaccine and may be present during the vaccination, which carries a slight risk of cold-like symptoms such as a cough and runny nose. Permission forms are being sent home in a special “Apple A Day” newsletter today and Friday. Staffers based at schools, including bus drivers, also will be eligible for the shots or nasal sprays.
Vaccinations will begin at the elementary level and will be administered alphabetically by high school attendance zone, starting with Bayside High. As many as five schools will be vaccinated a day.
Depending on supply, vaccinations could continue through December. Other local school divisions also are working on school-based vaccination plans, with shots and sprays beginning as early as Tuesday in Portsmouth and Norfolk. Specific dates haven’t been set in Suffolk or Chesapeake, but parents have received notifications.
Shaw said Beach schools will continue to send home any students with flu-like symptoms. Schools will remain open unless absences make education untenable.
“The school is a controlled environment, unlike home or the grocery store,” she said.
Lauren Roth, (757) 222-5133, lauren.roth@pilotonline.com