Yes, sadly it is true; the swine flu has officially come to Illinois. On Wednesday October 21st, St. Charles East High School was closed due to an over abundance of reported sicknesses.
On Tuesday 972 students called in sick, reporting flu like symptoms and that they would not be attending school that day. Out of the 2,100 students that attend St. Charles East, 45% stayed home.
Sending the school into shock, it decided to close until the following Monday in which it was slated to reopen. All extra-curricular activities and athletic events were cancelled for the week, including the highly anticipated fall play, East vs. North Game, and the Chorale Retreat.
“People were getting sick everywhere at every hour throughout the day,” junior at St. Charles East Corinne Thornton said, “It was almost strange walking through the hallways, not walking into people.”
Soon after the closing down of the school, reasoning for this outbreak was looked into. The recent homecoming events and the cold weather were most likely the factors for the spread of this flu.
“The bottom line is flu contributed to this, but it wasn’t the core cause,” Superintendent Don Schlomann told the Daily Herald, “There weren’t 900 and something students at St. Charles East with H1N1.”
Although it was not only swine flu making these students sick, it is a very probable possibility when accompanied with all the other flu-like symptoms occurring at the high school. The school officials stated that students were showing symptoms of H1N1 on Monday and Tuesday, but no confirmed cases of it were made.
After these conclusions, it was found that swine flu doesn’t attack the adults, but rather the younger people. This is probably the likely explanation for the teacher absences being no higher than normal when the student’s absences were a huge spike. Following this, a deep cleaning of the school was done to help prevent further spread.
“But the bottom line is that it started to interfere with learning with sometimes half our classes out sick. For example, test taking and in class discussions would be a hassle for many people to make up,” Thornton said. This obvious disruption to school life ultimately led to the closing of the school.
Although the students enjoyed a few days off from school, it doesn’t diminish the fact that this is the season to be even more careful than normal on one’s health.
Molly Sonricker, Staff Writer
