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By Joel Stottrup
 Two elementary schools in the Princeton School District each had a confirmed case of a student with the H1N1 flu this past week.
But it is no reason to be alarmed, Princeton Superintendent Rick Lahn said last week. Princeton School District Nurse Dawn Sievert Rolf agreed.
Sievert Rolf also said she understands from speaking to a staff member at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) that all the flu cases this season are the H1N1 type and not the regular flu. It is the understanding that the regular flu has not yet hit, she added.
Princeton School District Nurse Dawn Sievert Rolf takes the temperature of first grader Max Henke Monday morning at South Elementary. Henke's temperature was normal and he reported that he was feeling fine.
Sievert Rolf was unable to connect the Union-Eagle with the person she had gotten that information from. But Sievert Rolf did provide information from an Oct. 14 e-mail from the MDH relating to that.
The e-mail begins by supporting Lahn saying that Princeton is far from alone in having a lot of influenza activity. Minnesota schools are directed to report to the MDH whenever any school building has five percent or more students out for sickness. In the case of Princeton Public Schools that occurred at North Elementary and South Elementary the three days that Princeton schools were open last week, and that it was also the case for the middle school on Wednesday, Oct. 14.
Lahn said he had gotten updated flu information at a meeting of superintendents in St. Cloud on Oct. 13 and heard from a senior epidemiologist with the MDH named Kathryn Como-Sabetti. It was learned, Lahn said, that 250-260 schools had been reporting flu cases or flu outbreaks, out of Minnesota’s approximately 360 school districts. That’s about two-thirds who are reporting those situations, Lahn added.
Assume all flu cases are H1N1
Sievert Rolf’s e-mail from the MDH also states: The most common strain of influenza characterized at the MDH has been the 2009 H1N1 influenza.
Sievert Rolf was very busy Monday morning. Normally she would have been at her desk, but was instead at the office of the South Elementary nurse because that nurse was sick.
As Sievert Rolf saw students and a parent or two coming in, a few first graders began trickling in one by one asking to have their temperature taken. None of the three was running a fever and Sievert Rolf began to see a pattern that she questioned. It turned out a first grade teacher had decided to send all her students into the health office at South to have their temperature taken.
Sievert Rolf asked the third first grader who had come in for a temperature check to go back and tell his teacher to only send down kids who were not feeling well.
Asked for more information on the confirmed H1N1 cases last week, Sievert Rolf said she understood one case was at North Elementary on Oct. 12 and the other the next day at South Elementary. The middle school also had a case a week or two ago but that one has run its course, according to Lahn.
Sievert Rolf and Lahn agreed that the flu cases so far this season are the H1N1 type, both saying that it appears the regular flu has not yet hit the state.
State teachers’ conferences were conducted late last week so there was no school last Thursday and Friday. Lahn said that having those two days off was a good thing for slowing the spread of viruses.
Some months ago when state health officials assessed the effects of the H1N1 virus spread last winter, new recommendations were drafted for schools. Lahn explained that MDH is now recommending that schools stay open as much as possible.
No exact numbers were given as to how many flu cases or fractions of students should be out to close a school, Lahn said. But if so many students or staff members are out that it is no longer efficient teaching, that would be a factor, Lahn said.
“I’d say the number would be about 50 percent,” he said, explaining that there would be trouble teaching.
There have been a lot of kids with the flu lately and “how many we don’t know,” Lahn said. “But it is definitely in the school community.”
The Princeton district is meanwhile taking precautions, Lahn said, mentioning various preventive measures. One, he said, is teachers urging proper hygiene (including showing the youngest students proper hand washing) and another is that custodians are wiping down surfaces more frequently than usual, that includes door handles and faucets.
The message also continues to go out for parents to keep their children home if they have flu symptoms, Lahn added. The recommendation is they stay home until they are fever free for 24 hours without having to use a fever reducer, he explained.
“I think the bottom line is that the H1N1 flu is no more serious than the seasonal flu,” Lahn said. “There is no reason to panic.”
But the H1N1 is spreading so easily through the population, he said.
Lahn did request that if a parent has a child sick with flu-like symptoms, the district would like them to call the information in to their school office. District health workers want to keep tabs, said Lahn.
When someone calls in to tell their school that their child is sick, Sievert Rolf said, the parent is being asked to answer whether or not the symptoms are flu-like.
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