Flu pandemic scenarios grim for schools
By SARAH BRUYN JONES
The Tuscaloosa News
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 recently 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 comes 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 the 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.
http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070429/APN/704290821&cachetime=5
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=175
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=255
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=426
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=78