The impact of the much-publicized swine flu – particularly as it relates to local children and the schools they attend – was the topic of a Thursday morning discussion at Enumclaw City Hall.
The city had invited Christine Heinlein, Enumclaw School District nurse and health coordinator, to discuss H1N1, the particular strain of flu virus making the rounds this season. She told of the flu’s symptoms and, better yet, how to avoid catching, or spreading, the bug.
Heinlein said the school district has been hit plenty hard, but not enough to consider blosing any buildings.
“We’ve been right around 10 percent in all our buildings,” she said, discussing absentee rates. She noted Westwood Elementary had 23 percent of its students absent one day.
Heinlein said it’s unlikely an Enumclaw school will close due to the flu. To shut its doors for a day or more, the education process would have to be compromised: for example, if too few students remained to effectively teach a lesson.
“At this oint in the pandemic, it’s just not effective to close schools,” she said.
Heinlein said incidents of H1N1 have been fairly stable.
“We thought we’d see big peaks and valley,” she said, and that hasn’t been the case.
Cases in Enumclaw schools have been better than anticipated, she said, largely due to education and concerned parents.
“We’ve had some pretty vigilant parents,” Heinlein said, stating the best course of action is to keep kids home when they’re sick.
The guiding rule is the same, she said, for students heading back to school or adults returning to the workplace. It’s safe to go back once a patient’s temperature has dropped below 100 degrees for 24 hours, without the use of fever-reducing medication.
There is a difference between the so-called swine flu and traditional influenza, Heinlein said, adding that “most flu that is circulating, 99 percent, is H1N1.”
To avoid getting sick, she said, everyone should be washing their hands often, practicing “respiratory etiquette” (properly covering coughs and sneezes) and staying home if infected.
There have been delays in getting the H1N1 vaccine to the local level, Heinlein said, pointing out that King County was due for 933,000 doses but received just 10 percent of the requested amount.
Enumclaw was to receive 3,000 doses of the vaccine that would have been available at a recent clinic, but plans had to be shelved, Heinlein said. Now, the hope is to offer an inoculation clinic the first week of December.
