Pandemic calls for better hygiene, prevention practices

By Hannah Jochem ’10

Senior Meaghan Novi curled up on her couch for five days in late September to wait out the season’s newest illness—H1N1. She is one of 340,000 confirmed laboratory cases in the world, according to the World Health Organization. Novi is, however, among the first in a growing number of students at UAHS to contract the H1N1 virus, also called Swine flu.

Flu season is here and students are finding they need to change their daily routines to stay healthy.

On April 26, the U.S. Health Department declared the country to be in a public health emergency, followed two months later by the World Health Organization’s recognition of the swine flu as a pandemic. Since Sept. 25, there have been over 4,100 deaths in 191 different countries from the virus.

According to the Oct. 9 Columbus Dispatch article “H1N1 Flu Kills 14-year-old Columbus Boy,” an eighth grade boy at Holy Spirit School in Whitehall was the second person in central Ohio to die from the virus. He was, however, the first child to die in Central Ohio.

Novi was lucky-. Although she said she experienced a magnified fever, chills, aches and coughing, she had a relatively mild case of Swine flu.

“I had about five days of a fever, and my body ached much worse than from the regular flu,” Novi said.

Dr. Theresa Long, a Preventive Medicine Physician for Columbus, said the main symptoms of H1N1 are flu-like, including respiratory distress—like coughing and a sore throat—and a fever.

With 55 million children and 7 million adults in schools in the United States alone, students have become a major concern for spreading the virus.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, due to the close proximity in which students work and the vast number of people who could possibly become infected, students pose a great threat in spreading the virus.

UAHS, a school with 1,857 students, has the potential to face a serious flu outbreak.

“Children are 14 times more likely to get this infection than other adults,” Long said. “Kids are what I call ‘super spreaders;’ they easily pass the virus from person to person because of close proximity and lack of infection control.”

Some students have noticed that the high school is making an attempt to keep the school cleaner because of the outbreak of the Swine flu, including senior Kelli Conner.

“I think that teachers are making hand sanitizer more available,” Conner said. “And there have been posters about hand washing in the bathrooms.”

Hand sanitizers and posters are among a few of the measures the school has taken to prevent an outbreak of the virus. However, there is always more that could be done to keep students healthy. Long comments on precautions that are effective in keeping H1N1 under control.

“[UAHS] could and should, along with thorough and frequent cleaning of surfaces, have signs or posters all over with the basic messages of hand washing and covering coughs,” Long said. “Also, staying home and supporting that, as well as getting rid of perfect attendance policies and making it really easy [for students] to get school work online for days missed, and of course informing all of vaccine opportunities [are great ways to keep the school germ-free].”

The vaccination came out in small doses the week of Oct. 5, according to Long it is the ideal way to avoid contracting the virus.

“Students in general are a very high priority [to get the vaccination],” Long said “Children from six months to 18 years old are strongly encouraged with their parents’ consent to [get the vaccination].”

According to the UA Schools website, The Franklin County Board of Health will be providing vaccinations to students in three different clinics in UA. A RSVP with the number in each family who will receive the vaccination is a prerequisite.

The most commonly recommended prevention is common sense: stay home if sick, get plenty of rest, drink clear fluids, cover coughs and sneezes, wash hands often, and avoid close contact with others.

“Protect yourselves and your friends and family,” Long said. “It is not just about you, but in sharing responsibility in taking care of yourselves for others’ sakes. We all know someone with asthma or a heart condition or diabetes, or a neighbor who is pregnant. These folks are at very high risk, so wash your hands, cover coughs, stay home if sick and get vaccinated to protect yourself, your friends and loved ones!”

In the interest of global health, keeping as clean as possible this flu season is going to be a duty for everyone.

By Sarah Gifford

Each day here at UAHS, many kids are out sick. Even though many sicknesses, like bronchitis, strep, or even a sinus infection are going around, one illness is really throwing off the school’s attendance records: the H1N1 virus, also known at the swine flu. When there are many kids are at home from school, it not only throws off the attendance, but it also messes up the teachers’ lesson plans as well. This is because of all of the makeup work that they have to remember keep in order to give to their students. Even though the absences are stressing out the teachers, the students are especially feeling the pressure because they have so much work to do.

Kids who even miss one day will have a lot of makeup work to do when they get back to school. At Windermere Elementary, 5th grader Jonathan Grove missed 5 days of school because he had the swine flu and then pneumonia.

“I was very tired all the time, of course I felt really sick a lot, achy, and I had a really bad cough. What made it worse was that I had a lot of makeup work to do once I got back to school!” he said.

Swine Flu may be a big reason for all of these absences, but there are also a lot of other seasonal viruses that are going around at this time of year. “Nurses feel that the majority of kids are actually out with the swine flu, but there are also a lot of usual sicknesses that go around at this time of year, like strep, bronchitis, and even sinus infections.” said Melissa Thien, the attendance office secretary. Upper Arlington has been taking many measures to make sure that kids don’t get sick too often, some of which are: the school puts up signs all over to make sure that people wash their hands often, and the school puts out hand sanitizer as another way to make sure that kids are staying healthy. The school also reminds kids very often to stay home if they are sick so that other students won’t get sick, too.

“The biggest number of people that have been absent in one day is 170 students.” Thien’s statement attendance records.

Even though absences are making kids feel stressed out, they are also really stressing out the teachers. Teachers have to keep track of all of the kids that were absent, when they were gone, and what work they missed. It is especially hard for the global language teachers to get kids caught up, because just a worksheet isn’t enough for most kids to understand what they are talking about.

“It’s harder for us to get kids caught up compared to a history class, because there is a lot of classroom practice, and it’s hard to simulate that.” Said Lisa Markovich, a Global Language teacher at UAHS. Both students and teachers are making sure that they take any precautions possible to avoid sicknesses.

“There are a lot of ways that many teachers, including myself, are making sure that they don’t get sick. We are washing our hands a lot, coughing into our sleeves, exercise, eat well, and make sure to rest,” Said Markovich.

The Columbus Public Health website has a lot of information on symptoms that you will have if you do have the swine flu.

“Symptoms of H1N1 flu are similar to the seasonal flu, but may be more severe. These can include: fever, cough, core throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills, fatigue (tiredness), and vomiting and diarrhea for some.” The Columbus Board of Health said on their website.

Even though many kids are getting sick, there are always precautions that students can make in order to slow down the spread of germs. Teachers are also doing a lot to make sure that they don’t catch anything, either. Kids sometimes think that staying home from school is fun, but along with that comes makeup work.