# 713
I do wish editors would avoid headlines with words like `Doomsday' in them. They really aren't helpful, even if they do sell papers.
The subject, though, is an important one. How to handle the ramifications to students, parents, and the educational system if a pandemic forces the indefinite closure of schools.
Schools discuss doomsday avian flu plans
By Sarah Bruyn Jones
Staff Writer
TUSCALOOSA | A doomsday scenario of a flu pandemic that might never happen is driving a sweeping review of what states should do to minimize the potential impact.
Closing schools has been determined to be one of the best defenses to slow the spread of a flu outbreak, but the implications of long-term school closings are staggering. A flu outbreak of huge proportions would force school doors shut for weeks, if not months.
School administrators, health officials, law enforcement officers and business executives gathered Thursday to discuss how to handle closing schools for such an extended time. They also received a lesson on the realities of a flu pandemic.
One scenario being discussed is a widespread outbreak that would come in three waves, each lasting eight weeks. That’s more than half a year.
“The cycle we depend on to work would be completely disrupted," said Andy Rucks, an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Public Health.
Rucks, who works with the South Central Public Health Partnership, led Thursday’s tabletop exercise on school closings as a way to counter pandemic influenza. He and others are conducting similar exercises across the state.
“It could disrupt the school-year cycle permanently, so much that we will have to rethink how graduation or education will continue to work," Rucks said.
The scenarios are grim. Most involve multiple deaths and about half the population being ill. A PowerPoint presentation noted the likelihood that “Illness rates [will be] highest among school-aged children."
With kindergarten through 12th grades closed indefinitely, the balance of the community work force and life would come unhinged. Schools, after all, provide a form of day care for working parents.
From there the effects would spiral. Without a full work force, the local economy would be disrupted.
