Wondering if you child’s school will be next?

The top public health officials in King County — Dr David Fleming, Director, and Dr. Jeff Duchin, Chief Epidemiologist — have been hinting that school closures may not be a tactic for much longer.

As my KPLU colleague Liam Moriarty reported this morning (Friday),  “So far, none of the folks in King County with the H-1-N-1 (swine) virus have gotten any sicker than they might from any of the old familiar flu viruses. Dr. Fleming says if that trend holds in the coming days – and this bug proves to not be particularly nasty – some of the precautions such as closing schools could be relaxed ….”

On the other hand, three students at Lakes High School, south of Tacoma, were taken to Madigan Army Hospital with severe flu-like symptoms, and as of Friday morning, two of them were in intensive care units, in serious condition.  That led to closing the school, as a precaution.

Seems sensible and prudent.   If tests show that they indeed are suffering from the swine flu H1N1, then we might see school closures  as a good tactic that should continue.

I have to say, the top officials in public health agencies and school districts have seemed remarkably indifferent to the hardship the closures cause.  In particular, for single parents and parents working jobs that offer little or no sick/vacation leave, this is a whole separate crisis.

When will a leader (the Governor? a Health Director?) stand up and say to employers, “We are in an emergency situation, and I’m asking all employers in the state to give extra sick days to anyone whose child’s school has been closed for a week?”

[UPDATE, Friday afternoon: Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels deserves a prize for being the first to address the work issue.  He told a news conference today that the city is offering extra flexibility to its employees … and he called on other employers to do the same. ]

In case you missed it, in King County, four schools have been closed (as of noon Friday)(five schools as of Friday 4 pm)  because they each have a student who probably has swine flu.  (The reason for closures is to slow down the spread of the virus — to prevent a situation where lots of people are getting sick at once.  But, once the virus is confirmed to be widespread in the community, then there’s not much benefit from closing individual schools.)

If you’re like me, keep crossing your fingers that your child’s school doesn’t have a “probable” case during the next week, and maybe after that we’ll be beyond school closures.