Just found out, a boy in my class has SWINE FLU

[noonar]

I am feeling rather anxious to say the least about returning to school on Wednesday. Have spoken to my jobshare partner and apparently the rest of the staff are quite relaxed about the whole thing.

Would you feel ok about going back to work, if you were me??

At the last count 17 kids at one of our local schools had SF and the school hasn't shut but fixtures with that school have all been cancelled etc. I don't know why not shut except that perhaps the time for containment has passed, and it is also now not considered vital as the strain is milder than first thought. I would be anxious in your position only in so far as you have less choice about going to work that to, say, a large concert or something. We are going to Center Parcs in 2 weeks time and am imagining the "Subtropical Swimming Paradise" is a large incubation tank for bugs which has taken the shine off it a bit.

My defence plan is to keep the air circulating in my classroom as much as possible. Summer and winter.

i'll get slated for this. i already have on another thread. for sharing my experiences of swine flu and that it was, for the most part (and DD1 did indeed get a secondary infection) relatively mild.

Im just waiting for DS2 swab to come back- tbh, the hysteria here in Bham has gone, everybody knows someone who has it.

News reports about the death of the 6 year old girl here in bham only fuel futher hysteria, she had other health problems.

thanks all. i'm feeling really strung out about this. you are right,MrsE, its about a lack of choice. true, we could be exposed to it at any time, but if you knew someone on that bus had it, would you still get on board??

i KNOW that children in my class have been exposed to it. the max incubation period is not yet up. yet i am compelled to go in and teach.

hey, i wish we had only 4 days left of term!

also, i'm really, really upset that i cant go and visit my 92 yo gran, who lives alone and is really struggling in this heat. i just cant even entertain the idea of exposing her to it.

also, what constitutes an 'underlying health problem'? dd2 has a virus atm, nothing serious. she's still at school, but has slight earache and a sniffle.

noonar - think of it another way. If one of the kids in your class had normal seasonal flu, would you be contemplating not going in to work?? Seaonal flu is a much worse disease and is of much more danger to your Gran.

For what its worth - current thinking is that older people will have some form of immunity to swine flu - something to do with previous outbreaks

Slight earache and a sniffle is not an underlying health problem.

noonar - its probably best to get your info from reliable sources like WHO as there seems to be quite a lot of random speculation.

Taken from
Transcript of statement by Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization 11 June 2009

"This pattern is significantly different from that seen during epidemics of seasonal influenza,
when most deaths occur in frail elderly people. Many, though not all, severe cases have
occurred in people with underlying chronic conditions. Based on limited, preliminary data,
conditions most frequently seen include: respiratory diseases ? notably asthma ? cardiovascular
disease, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, and obesity.
At the same time, it is important to note that around one third to half of the severe and fatal
infections are occurring in previously healthy young and middle-aged people. Without
question, pregnant women are at increased risk of complications. This heightened risk takes
on added importance for a virus, like this one, that preferentially infects younger age groups."

The rest of the transcript is also interesting.

thanks, ohyou.

lal, no i wouldnt stay off work in those circs, but this is not the same at all as we have been given lots of conflicting messages re this flu. it's hard to reverse a feeling of mild panic, once the panic button has already been pressed.

am earlier post of mine:

" a month ago we saw footage on the news of schools being closed as cases of swine flu were discovered. children were sent home in tears with anti viral drugs....and i'm supposed not to panic"

slartybartfast - what did you say!?

noonar - the thing is we know more about swine flu now than we did a month ago - advice will change as we find out more.

Exapt and others who have had it/children have had it....

When you say relatively mild, how mild is that. For example, dd (5 at the time) had full on flu before christmas (over christmas as well in fact). Has never been so ill. Had to carry her to loo. Stopped peeing for 24 hours because was hot and just slept all the time. Went on for about 5 -7 days.

Now, she's off school today, and was yesterday. Bit peaky. Mild temp (i.e. 38 as opposed to the 39.5 of the previous flu). Bit of a cough. Slightly sore throat. Small upset stomach. Still eating, drinking and capable of bouncing.

Of course, my mother queried swine flu! But having seen her with the winter flu at Christmas, she is no way ill enough in my opinion.....

Not really concerned - she's OK under it all and all that. Just that I am 30 weeks pregnant and would hope to avoid it for now (though that of course raises the question of September/October surge in cases just after dc3 has been born...).

DD1 took it the hardest. She had a temp, but it would go down with ibuprofen. Her cough was the worst out of all of us but she didn't have vomitting. She had awful muscle/body aches.

I had a terrible cough, on-off fever which was about 39 degrees, sneezing, runny nose, D&V but mostly was very, very fatigued for a few days. Could have just slept and slept.

DD2 had a cough and D&V and was a bit gurny, but always able to play.

DS, a baby, had a bad cough, D&V, sneezing and runny nose and a temp that would improve readily with ibuprofen, too.

DH just had what he said was like a bad cold.

Thanks for that expat. Really interesting. Obviously people are really worried, but it does seem that the fact that people die every year from "normal" flu does seem to have been lost in the story.

Sounds similar to what we all had at christmas. Each of us affected in different ways - dd defo the worst, then me. DH and ds more like heavy colds (with temps). Think what is suggesting that this is just a bad cold (without snot) is that her temp is not especially high. Both mine have tendency to be hot hot hot when ill, with temps of nearly 40 not unheard of. This is just a little hot for her and of course the weather doesn't help!

Also, she is finding sleep hard to come by which again is completely different to Xmas flu when she slept for about 22 hours out of 24 for about 2 days, poor thing.

Our school's got it, nursery closed but rest of the school still going. Some classes have half the kids off, but nobody's in a panic as it seems relatively mild. Most kids are like ExPat's DD2, though some more like her DD1. I think my son may have had it last week - he had slightly aching legs, a runny nose and a dry cough, but I sent him to school . In my defence he was bouncing about, eating, had no temperature and we hadn't heard swine flu might be about. Might not have been it of course, but it's a bit of a coincidence. Me and DH both have bad headaches, runny noses and slight aches, but no more. Am only saying this to reassure .

wow,

to merrylegs btw.

it was said in jest you know