# 3506
The plan right now, is to re-open schools as normal this fall, but officials in the UK are taking a cautious stance, and intend to review the situation towards the end of August before deciding.
Over the summer the UK has seen dozens of school closings, and 218 school-aged children hospitalized (some in serious condition).
First this report from Sky News, then a few comments on school closings.
Schools May Stay Shut As Flu Hits Children
10:03am UK, Saturday July 18, 2009
Schools may remain closed after the summer break after it emerged swine flu has left 218 children in hospital.
Patient Charlie gets checked out after being sent home from school with fever
The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) said it "cannot be certain what the situation will be", come the autumn.
About 1,000 schools have already recorded cases of swine flu, the DCSF said in its guidance to teachers, though most have managed to stay open.
At the start of the outbreak, affected schools closed in an attempt to contain the virus but the UK has now moved away from such steps as the number of cases rises too high.
The DCSF said it was looking at the situation on a day by day basis and would be monitoring developments over the summer.
It has emerged that in England alone there are now 134 under-fives in hospital with the virus and 84 aged between five and 16.
A message will be sent to schools in the last week of August informing them of what to do at the start of term.
Decisions to close (or not close) schools are always going to be dicey for public officials. Their are passionate opinions on both sides of this issue, and no matter what is decided, some sizeable group will be unhappy about it.
When this outbreak first began, here in the US the official advice was to close schools the moment any cases appeared – and to keep them closed at least 14 days.
That advice lasted less than a week. Almost immediately there were outcries over the impact of closing schools.
Prime among them: Working parents may have to stay home to care for their kids if schools are closed and many kids get vital daily nutrition from the school lunch programs.
As it became apparent that most of the people stricken by this virus only suffered `mild’ symptoms (a relative term), and that the virus was already well entrenched in most communities, the CDC modified their recommendations in favor of keeping schools open whenever possible.
As Dr. Anne Schuchat stated yesterday, the CDC believes that “The best place for healthy kids is school.'”
That said, I’m certain the CDC will review this issue practically on a day-to-day basis. If large numbers of kids start falling severely ill once the school year begins, there will be mounting pressure from many parents to close the schools.
No doubt, many parents will simply keep their kids home – regardless of their school’s status.
Reasonable?
Perhaps not from the macro-view of public health authorities, but when viewed as a parent, the `standards’ are always a bit different.
On the other hand, schools are going to be an important venue for vaccinating kids (another damned if you do, damned if you don’t decision point). And many kids, if school is dismissed, will simply hang out together and defeat the purpose of school closings – which is social distancing.
I don’t envy the DCSF in the UK having to decide this issue, or the CDC and local school officials here in the States.
Whatever they decide, it will be `wrong’ in the eyes of a lot of people. The media (tabloid and otherwise) will play up every child’s death that comes as the result of school being in session.
While either course is fraught with problems, personally, I believe that if we start seeing a lot of illness in the fall among school-aged children, that closing schools is generally the lesser of two evils.
Tough choices lie ahead.
And for many of them, we won’t know what the `right thing’ to do was until after the pandemic is over.
