School takes a sick day — and it’s not faking it

    Cover your mouths, wash your hands, and cross your fingers, Holyoke — the flu has hit, and it has hit hard.
    Friday, Feb. 3, saw closed doors at Holyoke School District Re-1J for a school sick day, a rarity in Holyoke school history. The culprit? Influenza A.
    Illness was by far the No. 1 reason for 56 K-12 students and two staff members out of school Monday, Jan. 30, numbers that climbed to 88 students and seven staff members by Thursday, Feb. 2.
    Holyoke has 249 JR/SR High School students and 314 elementary students enrolled for a total of 563 students.
    Superintendent John McCleary was out himself with diagnosed Influenza A last week. While he had previously said that 40-50 percent of students and a significant number of staff would have to be sick before school would be called, he changed his mind when he was well enough to walk through the schools Thursday.
    “I started adding up the ‘soft facts’ — we had a lot of sick folks working who were doing so because they knew they had things that had to get done,” he said. “When I realized, for example, that even the custodians were ill but still working, it became pretty evident that we were working toward having a school illness crisis.”
    Besides the seven absent teachers Thursday, McCleary estimated another nine throughout the district to be ill but still working and knew many students were probably sick but still present as well.
    He said he contacted the health department, which was supportive of the decision to close school. “I know that making decisions like these can sometimes be disruptive, but we really needed some time to let folks and kids get healthy, or at the very least, be sick on their own,” said McCleary.
    Influenza A is highly contagious and, according to the Center for Disease Control, can usually be spread a full day before symptoms appear and for five to seven days after symptoms set in. The most common symptoms include fever, chills, headache and body ache.
    The virus is spread through respiratory droplets from coughing, sneezing or even speaking, and it can survive for up to 24 hours on hard surfaces, said Dr. Aaron Wilson of Melissa Memorial Hospital.
    Just imagine how easily it could spread from even one desk to several bodies throughout the course of an eight-class-period day — and the person bringing it to school could seem perfectly healthy.
    “It’s all coming from the schools,” confirmed Wilson last Thursday. “The people coming in are all connected to the schools.”
    MMH conducted 51 tests for Influenza A Monday, Jan. 30, through the morning of Monday, Feb. 6, with 21 coming back positive.
    While health departments don’t track how many of those positives and negatives were from patients that received the flu vaccine (which covers Influenza A), Wilson does in order to gauge the effectiveness of the shot.
    Based on his data, he estimated that those who received this year’s shot are only about 50 percent more protected from the flu than those not receiving the vaccine.
    A new vaccine is concocted each year, based on projections for the always-mutating flu virus. Wilson explained that the introduction of bits and pieces of the virus is meant to spark a reaction in the body, helping it build antibodies against the flu.
    “Last year’s vaccine was very effective,” he said, citing very low flu rates in the community. This year’s vaccine, while still offering protection, was no guarantee.
    While the school was closed for a long weekend, all handles and knobs in both buildings were wiped down. Air-sanitizing foggers, also called “disinfectant bombs,” were then set off to release a fine mist, sterilizing the air and surfaces to kill viruses on contact.
    Thursday and Friday sports events were canceled or rescheduled, and Saturday’s basketball game against Akron was scaled back to varsity only.
    For the JR/SR high school, it appears that the break did the trick, as absentee numbers plummeted down to 17 Monday, Feb. 6. In the elementary, however, numbers still hovered near Wednesday and Thursday’s levels at 27. Elementary secretary Tancy King said a new set of students was sick this week compared to last week.
    Wilson said that the wave of Influenza A will probably continue on in the community for a couple more weeks as the virus spreads to parents and others.
    He said he has been prescribing Tamiflu to those testing positive for the virus, as well as preventative prescriptions to patients’ families if desired to help prevent it from spreading.
    In the meantime, Wilson recommended general good health practices to protect oneself from contracting or spreading the virus — cover coughs and sneezes, wash hands, drink plenty of fluids, avoid high-sugar foods and get plenty of rest.
    He also recommended shopping or going to other public places in the morning rather than the evening, as the air is clearer at that time.