A bit more on that from the NYTimes.
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The New York Times
May 18, 2009
First Swine Flu Death Reported in New York
By A.G. SULZBERGER and ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
The assistant principal of a Queens school who had been hospitalized with swine flu died on Sunday evening. It was the first death in New York State from the outbreak and came as city officials announced that five more Queens schools had been closed.
The assistant principal, Mitchell Wiener, 55, had been “overwhelmed” by the illness despite treatment with an experimental drug, according to Ole Pedersen, a spokesman for Flushing Hospital Medical Center, where Mr. Wiener had been a patient since Wednesday. He was the fifth American to die after contracting the swine flu virus.
Mr. Pedersen said that Mr. Wiener, the assistant principal of Intermediate School 238 in Hollis, one of the schools closed last week, had been on a ventilator and had slipped in and out of consciousness during his illness.
One of Mr. Wiener’s three sons, Adam, said about an hour after his death that the family was too devastated to talk. “Out of respect to my family, not right now,” Adam Wiener said. “We can’t talk about this right now.”
On Friday, Mr. Wiener’s wife, Bonnie, lashed out at city officials for failing to act sooner to close the school. “I know we have a duty to educate the children of New York,” said Ms. Wiener, who is a reading teacher at the same school and is not sick. But, she added, “something just doesn’t fit right.”
City officials said Mr. Wiener might have had some other health problems. His family said that he had suffered from gout but that it was under control with medication.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in a statement that the city would mourn Mr. Wiener’s death.
“He was a well-liked and devoted educator, and his death is a loss for our schools and our city,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “I ask all New Yorkers to keep his wife, Bonnie, and the rest of his family in their thoughts and prayers.”
Ernest A. Logan, the president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, said in a statement: “Mitch was the truest kind of educational leader, unsung, yet absolutely dedicated to his students, his teachers and fellow administrators, and to his principal, Joe Gates. He serves us as a fine model, and we grieve his loss.”
The closings announced on Sunday followed a sharp rise in the number of students at the schools who have fallen ill with flulike symptoms, bringing the number of closed schools to 10 in Queens and one in Brooklyn. Jessica Scaperotti, a spokeswoman for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said that there were no more confirmed cases of swine flu but that the department had decided to close the schools because of “unusually high and increasing levels of influenzalike illness.”
A total of 105 students were documented with flulike illness at Middle School 158 in Bayside, Our Lady of Lourdes in Queens Village and a building in Flushing that houses three schools with a total of 1,320 students, including Intermediate School 25. All of the schools will be closed beginning Monday for at least five days, the department said.
“We are evaluating the situation and looking at all schools in New York City and making decisions on a case-by-case basis,” Ms. Scaperotti said.
The health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said in a statement about the school closings that while swine flu resembled seasonal flu, it had been spreading more rapidly.
“We are now seeing a rising tide of flu in many parts of New York City,” he said.
Dr. Scott A. Harper, a medical epidemiologist with the health department’s Bureau of Communicable Disease, said that since swine flu was discovered in New York there have been 178 confirmed cases, with a vast majority of cases going undiagnosed. “The first hint that it was here was in a school, so we’re not surprised to see activity in schools continuing,” he said.
Late last week, the city closed five schools in Queens and one in Brooklyn, after five cases of swine flu were confirmed, including that of Mr. Wiener.
Ron Davis, a spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers, said several teachers had reported flu symptoms in the past few days, but there were no confirmed cases among teachers.
Mr. Wiener was hired as a teacher at Intermediate School 238 in September 1978 after working as a substitute teacher in the city for six months. He became assistant principal of the school in July 2007.
Javier Hernandez contributed reporting.
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