Report: NYC to close 3 more schools due to flu
A day after three New York City schools were closed because of H1N1 flu concerns, the city will shut three more where students are sick, The Associated Press is reporting, citing an unnamed official.
The AP says the three schools to be closed are in Queens and Brooklyn. Yesterday, officials closed three Queens schools because an assistant principal who contracted the virus is clinging to life.
Mitchell Wiener, 55, a 31-year veteran teacher, was breathing only with the help of a ventilator, his wife, Bonnie, told the New York Daily News.
She said the principal at her husband's school, IS 238, wanted to close it last week but was rebuffed. She said the city Health Department "chastised him and told him he was going to start a panic."
Mitchell Wiener is the city's first serious case of the H1N1 flu.
City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said at a news conference that the virus appears “to be spreading more rapidly than traditional influenza spreads.”
Earlier today, President Obama named Frieden to be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, giving him a leading role in solving the nation's flu crisis.
Update at 6:33 p.m. ET: The U.S. death toll resulting from the H1N1 virus has risen to five. Texas health officials announced that a 33-year-old Corpus Christi man with heart and other medical problems died May 5 or 6 after contracting the virus, which his body could not fight off because of his underlying health problems, the AP says. His was the third confirmed death linked to the virus in Texas.
blogs.usatoday.com |
