The New York Times
May 16, 2009
Three More Schools Close in Queens
By LIZ ROBBINS and ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Three more public schools were closed Friday — adding to the three in Queens shut down on Thursday — after the swine flu re-emerged in more pockets around the city. An assistant principal remained hospitalized in critical condition with the most serious case since the virus turned up in the city more than three weeks ago.
The number of people infected by the virus nationwide could be as high as 100,000, one federal health official said Friday, far more than just the 4,714 cases currently confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Daniel Jernigan, head of epidemiology for the flu division of the C.D.C., said the agency was seeing “widespread flu activity — something we would not normally expect at this time of year.”
The vast majority of cases have been mild, however, with only 173 hospitalizations reported in the United States. On Friday, Texas health officials confirmed that a 33-year-old man with heart problems who was morbidly obese died from swine flu, becoming the nation’s fifth fatality from the current outbreak of the disease.
Just as New Yorkers were thinking the virus had abated here after surfacing last month at a parochial high school in Fresh Meadows, Queens, students began falling ill this week, causing the teachers’ unions and parents to express their concerns to the city.
On Thursday the Education Department decided to close I.S. 238, where the assistant principal became ill, as well as P.S. 16 in Corona, where 29 students went to the nurse’s office with flu-like symptoms, and I.S. 5 in Elmhurst, where 241 students were reported absent. Those schools are scheduled to reopen on May 22.
Then on Friday the city closed J.H.S. 74 in Bayside and P.S. 107 in Flushing, both in Queens, and I.S. 318 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This came after the teachers’ union presented education and health officials with a list of schools they thought should be closed.
Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the departing New York City health commissioner, said the health department decided to act again “because there are unusually high and increasing levels of flu-like illnesses at these three public schools."
These three schools are to reopen May 26, after the Memorial Day weekend.
Dr. Frieden, who expressed surprise at the large clusters of the illness, said at a news conference in Elmhurst, Queens, “We don’t know why that is, but the fact that we have neither a vaccine nor experience being infected with this strain of influenza are likely explanations.”
But Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who accompanied Dr. Frieden at the news conference, reiterated that although the flu virus, whose formal name is A(H1N1), may have been spreading more rapidly, it did not appear to be causing any more severe illness than seasonal influenza.
The assistant principal from I.S. 238 in Hollis, Mitchell Wiener, 55, of Flushing, was listed in critical but stable condition at Flushing Hospital Medical Center on Friday.
Mr. Wiener’s eldest son, Adam, 23, said that his father, who is on a ventilator, had contracted pneumonia and a kidney infection as a result of the flu.
While colleagues and friends of the educator said he had diabetes, the younger Mr. Wiener seemed to take objection to Mr. Bloomberg’s statement on Thursday night that his father had other health problems that could have made him more susceptible to the virus.
“My father has absolutely no other previous ailments that would complicate the swine flu despite what Mayor Bloomberg said,” he said in an interview, adding that was he who had diabetes.
He acknowledged that his father had once suffered from the “gout,” but that it was “long over,” and unrelated to his current condition.
In addition to Mr. Wiener, 4 students from I.S. 238 have confirmed cases of swine flu, officials said, noting that since May 6 more than 50 had been sent home with influenza-like symptoms.
Mr. Wiener became ill last Friday, his family said, but he did not go to the hospital until Wednesday morning, when his fever rose sharply and his eyes appeared glazed.
Mr. Wiener’s wife, Bonnie, who teaches at I.S. 238, said she was outraged that city officials did not close the school as soon as they knew there were four cases of swine flu, and questioned the city’s rationalization to keep them open “because some parents did not have day care.”
Dr. Frieden said that decisions to close the school were “a judgment call,” and made on “a case by case basis.”
But Ms. Wiener said: "I’m more than the anguished spouse, I’m also a staff member, so I can see it on both sides. My staff has been panicked. We have 100 staff members, some with compromised immune systems, some with families with compromised immune systems."
At I.S. 5, masked workers could be seen wiping down cafeteria tables on Friday, following a day in which the nurse’s office was flooded with pupils who complained of feeling ill.
“Every time you went to the nurse’s office there was a long line of kids outside,” said Eloisa Gelo, 40, who teaches English as a second language.
“Many kids were absent this week,” added Ms. Gelo, who was standing outside the school on Friday. “I have a sore throat myself. I’m going to go home to see whether or not to call the doctor."
A small number of students and parents showed up at I.S. 5 on Friday, unaware of the closing. There was also some confusion outside P.S. 16, a school with about 1,500 students, as about two-dozen parents and children began arriving.
A note on the door from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said that the school would be closed for at least five days.
“These schools have experienced unusually high levels of influenza-like illness in recent days,” the note read. “We are also seeing an increase in flu activity in Queens more generally. We hope that these temporary closures will prevent new infections and avoid unnecessary illness.”
"I didn’t know," said Susana Cruz, the mother of Madelyne Vaca, 7. "It’s a little scary because everything was O.K. yesterday."
The outbreaks came nearly a month after students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows, Queens, became ill. Several of them said that during spring break they had been to Mexico, where the outbreak was more extensive and far more virulent.
The flu spread rapidly at St. Francis, infecting hundreds of students within days. Anxious New Yorkers, many without any symptoms, taxed hospital emergency rooms, and bought up supplies of hospital masks and Tamiflu from neighborhood pharmacies.
Jessica Scaperotti, a spokeswoman for the health department, said that 178 New York City residents had tested positive for swine flu as of Thursday, but that the number was deceptive because the city had scaled down its testing efforts as the symptoms in most people turned out to be mild.
Reporting was contributed by Sewell Chan, Javier C. Hernandez, Angela Macropoulos, Donald G. McNeil Jr., Mick Meenan, Kenny Porpora and Rebecca White.
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