Is Kentucky Schools Closed Due To Illness COVID-19 And The Flu: A school district in Kentucky has cancelled in-person classes for the remainder of the week after more than twenty percent of students became ill during the first two weeks of school with COVID-19, strep throat, and the flu.
Despite the fact that classes began on August 9, the superintendent of the Lee County School District, Earl Ray Schuler, reported a decline in attendance to about 8% on Friday. The school district has roughly 900 students. According to Schuler, this number fell to 81% on Monday, and fourteen employees called in sick.
Is Kentucky Schools Closed Due To Illness COVID-19 And The Flu
Due to snow days on Tuesday and Wednesday, the school district will transition to online education on Thursday and Friday. Schuler reports that all after-school activities have been cancelled for the week so that the school can conduct a comprehensive cleaning.
According to Schuler, the elementary school and the combined middle and high school in the district had nearly the same number of students calling in sick.
While the majority of the country is just getting back into the flow of the new school year, some school districts have already had to cancel classes due to extreme weather. This week, a number of school districts, including those in Palm Springs, California, Johnston, Iowa, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, cancelled classes or dismissed pupils early.
The Lee County school system in Kentucky advises parents to keep their children at home and to avoid sending them to school if possible. It has also encouraged people to acquire the flu and COVID-19 vaccines, even though these are not required by the school system.
Experts in public health across the nation have urged the public to get their annual flu vaccinations and new COVID boosters as soon as they become available to prevent respiratory illnesses this fall.
In September or October, the CDC recommends that everyone 6 months and older receive a flu vaccination. However, the FDA has not yet approved the mid- to late-September release of the updated Covid enhancements.
Even though it is officially back-to-school season, Dr. Danny Benjamin, a professor of paediatrics at Duke University, believes it is still too early in the year for widespread flu outbreaks. He predicted that epidemics of COVID-19 and other non-flu viruses will increase over the next few weeks.
Benjamin predicted that there will be a pandemic of swine flu in schools in early October. Early October 2017 marked the onset of peak influenza activity in the United States.
Benjamin also suggested that parents teach their children to wash their hands frequently and conceal their coughs and sneezes with their elbows. He stated that masking at school could be an option for the extremely small number of immunocompromised students. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that doing so would occasionally attract unwanted attention.
COVID-19 status in the United States
The most recent data on COVID-19 infections in the United States is several weeks old, and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention no longer conduct national surveillance of the virus. Few individuals in the United States ever disclose the results of their tests.
During the previous two weeks, a substantial increase in viral levels was detected at over a quarter of wastewater testing locations on Monday. According to the CDC, COVID-19 has caused more than 1.1 million deaths and over 6.3 million hospitalisations globally.
The agency reported a 21.4% increase in fatalities and a 21.6% increase in hospitalisations for the most recent week for which data is available. In addition, the CDC anticipates an increase in coronavirus-related hospitalisations in the coming weeks.
How to Take Precautions Against Disease?
People no longer take pride in the fact that they went to work despite being ill with the flu, according to Lockard. Additionally, he stated that avoiding public locations and remaining at home when symptoms manifest are effective preventative measures.
Regular hand washing, the use of hand disinfectant, and the concealment of coughs and sneezes are essential precautions against COVID-19 and other infections. Lockard also recommended receiving the most recent flu and COVID-19 vaccinations. Some categories may also be vaccinated against RSV.
