The county health department announced Thursday it planned to
close Rucker Elementary School until at least Monday as health
officials waited for swine flu test results from at least one of
seven students who attended classes this week.
Morgan Hill
The county health department announced Thursday it planned to close Rucker Elementary School until at least Monday as health officials waited for swine flu test results from at least one of seven students who attended classes this week.
At least one Rucker student is being tested for the swine flu and the district is waiting for results from the Santa Clara County Public Health Department, Flores said. The district still does not have any confirmed cases of swine flu, which would cause county health officials would give the order to shut down any schools where confirmed cases are found. Closing Rucker is a “preventative measure at this point that will give us time to get the results,” she said. These are the only cases at any of the district schools, she said. None of the other schools have reported students with flu-like symptoms.
Meanwhile, Ann Sobrato High School Principal Debbie Padilla said two students stayed home sick with the flu, but it wasn’t swine flu. One parent called the office to let them know she was testing her son. That test have come back negative, Padilla said.
“The problem is, we’re dealing with regular flu at the same time,” Padilla said. “We’re telling parents to take extra cautions, that if they’re child is showing symptoms to keep them home. Our goal is to not have any cases, hopefully.”
In the Gilroy case, an unrelated error during testing at Saint Louise Regional Hospital delayed the Rucker student’s results, and county staff have since labeled the sample a “high priority” – meaning scientists will evaluate the sample ahead of dozens taken from throughout the county, said Molly Carbajal, a Santa Clara County Public Health Department spokesperson. The label does not have to do with any particular suspicion about the results.
While health officials wait to hear about the one Rucker student, an additional six students there with symptoms have been referred to doctors. If there were a confirmed student case, county health officials would give the order to shut down those schools.
Federal health officials believe the flu, which regularly affects pigs but rarely humans, originated in Mexico, and they are concerned because it is a new virus for which people have little or no immunity and no vaccine. In addition to being the suspect cause in more than 2,000 illnesses and 150 deaths in Mexico, the flu has infected 109 people in the United States and killed nine in Texas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga. Responding to the virus’ rapid spread, the World Health Organization’s director-general, Margaret Chan, raised the organization’s alert level from phase four to phase five Wednesday, signifying that a flu pandemic was imminent.
“At this stage, effective and essential measures include heightened surveillance, early detection and treatment of cases, and infection control in all health facilities,” according to the WHO Web site.
Saint Louise physicians tested the student Wednesday morning, but “everybody” at the hospital authorized to speak to the media was in a meeting Thursday morning, according to the hospital’s phone operator who said, “There’s kind of a situation going on here.” She did not elaborate, and messages left with the hospital’s CEO and other representatives were not immediately returned. Hospital spokesperson Jasmine Nguyen wrote in an e-mail that she was “unable to confirm any information” as of 12 p.m., and county health officials remained equally reticent.
“We are not releasing information about hospital patients due to patient confidentiality, and right now we’re treating this as a suspected case,” Carbajal said. “If it comes back as a probable case – which precedes a confirmed case – we will work with all the hospitals to make sure staff follow infection control measures.”
If the results come back as a probable case, the school district would shut down Rucker – which serves a rural population of 640 primarily Hispanic students in northern and eastern Gilroy – at the county’s behest, Flores said. The girl at Rucker also lives with a boy – whose name was also forwarded to county officials – that attends a district school, and if the girl’s test results come back probable, that school could be shut down as well.
As of Thursday afternoon, county health officials have identified six probable cases of swine flu in San Jose and Santa Clara and have forwarded them to the CDC for confirmation. There have been no confirmed cases in the county out of 99 tested as of 1 p.m. Thursday. The six probable cases in Santa Clara County do not include the possible Gilroy cases.
Aside from the 14 confirmed cases in California – mostly in the southern region of the state – at least 109 Americans have contracted swine flu, including a 23-month-old child from Mexico who died from the illness while in Houston, Tex. Also hard hit have been South Carolina and New York.
Morgan Hill Unified School District officials say teachers are instructing students on proper hand washing techniques and will be monitoring to ensure that all students comply, according to a statement.
“We will continue to keep parents informed as we move through this situation via ConnectEd phone and Internet messages to each family’s home, school newsletters and bulletins,” Curriculum Director Pat Blanar said in the statement. “Any students displaying symptoms will be isolated from other students, and parents will be called to pick up their student immediately. We will take every precaution possible at our schools; however the most effective way to minimize the spread of this virus is for parents to keep their child home if they are ill.
“If a school closure becomes necessary, all families will be contacted through ConnectEd and a letter. Parents can rest assured that once students are at school, they would not be sent home until the end of the school day.”
Live Oak High School Principal Nick Boden referred requests for comment to school district spokesman Dan Ehrler, who said no other schools reported students being tested for swine flu.
Fifteen-year-old Ann Sobrato High School sophomore Stephanie Anguiano said she was concerned because she lives near Branham High School, where the San Jose girl attended. Branham closed Wednesday after the girl’s likely condition was announced.
But, Anguiano and her friends said they weren’t doing much to change their habits and hadn’t heard too much about the near-pandemic.
Sophomores Thomas Goslin and Jackson Hattick said they, too, weren’t all that worried about it.
“Some of my friends are freaking out,” Goslin said. “They’ve gone through a lot of bottles of hand sanitizer. But I’m not really afraid of it at all.
“People die of regular flu,” he added with a shrug.
“I’m not too big on it,” Hattick added.
Both agreed they’d worry if more people came down with it.
Fourteen cases of swine flu have been confirmed throughout California, mostly in the southern part of the state, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 90 cases have been confirmed throughout the country, with at least 51 in New York and 16 in Texas – where a 23-month-old child from Mexico City died in Houston Wednesday morning after visiting relatives in Brownsville.
The Mexican government’s tally of people with likely swine flu infections remained at 2,498 Wednesday, and officials there suspect the virus caused 159 deaths.
Carl Honaker, the director of Santa Clara County airports who oversees the South County Airport in San Martin, said employees there were washing their hands and being cautious like everyone else, but staff there really have no direct exposure to flights from Mexico because they must check in with customs near San Diego before flying farther north, he said.
“We don’t have an influx of people coming in from Mexico, and any flights from Mexico have to land and clear customs at other airports before coming to South County,” Honaker said. “We don’t really concern ourselves too much with that.”
At the Gardener South County Health Center downtown near Martin and Monterey streets, about 20 people showed up Wednesday morning in addition to scheduled patients, some complaining of flu-like symptoms, others just scared and concerned.
“People are definitely panicking,” said Reymundo Espinoza, CEO of Gardner Health Network. “The biggest issue right now is protecting yourself.”
About 100 migrant worker families – mostly coming from near the Texas or Arizona borders with Mexico – will move into the Arturo Ochoa Migrant Farmworker Center off Arizona Circle in southeast Gilroy today. Of the 260 or so people expected to arrive, about 100 will be children who will enter the school system for the remainder of the study year, according to a camp employee.
Obata and Santa Clara County Public Health Department Spokeswoman Joy Alexiou said there were no special precautions the school district or the county would be taking in expectation of the new students, but the county has been in contact with the Gilroy camp, which is one of 25 subsidized living quarters run by the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development Office of Migrant Services. It is the only such camp in Santa Clara County.
Gardner Family Health Network has a mobile clinic that remains on site at the camp as part of the health provider’s mobile fleet, which links up with stationary clinics between here and San Jose.
The coordinated effort serves about 20,000 people throughout southern Santa Clara County. Gardner CEO Reymundo Espinoza said Wednesday he was aware of the camp’s impending opening, but Espinoza and the school district’s nurse said there was nothing to really do until someone reported symptoms, and then they would be treated like anyone else who requests it.
