Swine Flu: Milwaukee Closes More Schools

Mexico is on the verge of resuming normal activities after the swine flu outbreak.

Mexico decides Monday whether to reopen businesses and schools or extend a shutdown that has helped choke off the spread of swine flu but caused untold economic harm. The virus continued to spread around the world, with new cases in Europe and North and South America.

President Felipe Calderon said a nationwide shutdown and an aggressive informational campaign appeared to have helped curtail the outbreak in Mexico. His health secretary said the government had started preparations for the return to classes and work, distributing safety plans to businesses and disinfecting schools.

"We have succeeded in detaining or at least slowing the spread of the virus precisely because the measures have been the correct ones," Calderon said in an interview with state television broadcast Sunday night.

Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said the virus had killed at least 22 people in Mexico, raising the toll from 19, adding that the last confirmed death occurred April 29. He said the virus had sickened at least 568 people and apparently peaked in Mexico between April 23 and April 28.

The news out of Mexico is encouraging.

More, from Reuters:

Mexico breathed easier on Monday in its fight against a deadly flu epidemic that may be retreating after a 10-day scare that has brought much of public life to a standstill.

...The Mexican health ministry announced on Sunday the flu epidemic had passed the worst and experts said the virus might be no more severe than normal flu, although it could still have an impact on world health.

"The virus has entered into a stabilization phase. The cases are starting to decrease," Mexican President Felipe Calderon said, referring to the illness in his country.

He said Mexico would begin to get back on its feet again this week after shutting restaurants, offices, cinemas and even churches to try to stop the spread of the disease.

"Our objective is to return to normality as soon as possible but what I want is to do that in secure conditions," Calderon said in a televised interview late on Sunday.

What's happening in Mexico is not happening in Milwaukee.

Mayor Tom Barrett announced on Sunday that Milwaukee isn't mulling over reopening schools. More schools are closed.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

City officials on Sunday closed several more Milwaukee public schools for this week because of probable swine flu cases, bringing the city's total closings to 22 schools.

The city also closed one day care center.

A few more schools in surrounding suburbs and counties also have announced closings because of the H1N1 flu, which so far has caused one death in Texas and sickened several hundred people in at least 34 states.

"We are not closing the entire district," Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said at a Sunday news conference. "We have chosen to continue the path we began last week: Look at individual schools and individual children if they have been tested."

Nearly 8,500 Milwaukee Public Schools students and 1,000 to 1,200 district employees are affected by the closures, district spokeswoman Roseann St. Aubin said.

...The decision to close more schools in the swine flu outbreak - which stood at 54 probable cases in Milwaukee as of Sunday - came after conference calls with federal and state health officials, the mayor said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Department of Health Services recommend that schools with probable cases close over a 14-day period to reduce the spread of the new flu strain.

Officials will evaluate in six days whether schools can reopen, Milwaukee Health Commissioner Bevan Baker said.

...Staff and students are further advised to stay home and not congregate outside of school, Barrett said.

"We are not announcing these schools will be closed 14 days," said Barrett, noting that the CDC is continuing to evaluate its school guidelines for the outbreak. "We are dealing with a new virus that does not have a vaccine at this time. It is my hope as the week progresses that we will continue to see the severity stay low, and we may be able to back off" on closings.

If the CDC and the state Department of Health Services recommend that schools remain closed for 14 days, why are Milwaukee officials disregarding that recommendation?

Maybe Barrett thinks parents would go ballistic if at this point the decision was made to shut down schools for two weeks.

It does seem that factors other than protecting the public health are at work here.

Why suggest that Milwaukee is prepared to go against the federal and state health officials' recommendation?

Fourteen days. Four days. Whatever.

I think the alleged wait and see approach has more to do with measuring parental reaction to the inconvenience of school closures than monitoring the health issues.

If the heat gets too hot for Barrett to handle, expect to see schools reopen sooner rather than later.

The response to the swine flu outbreak has been heavy with politics. That's not surprising in this post-Katrina era.