Over the course of the last one to two weeks, over seven hundred schools around the United States have closed in response to the swine flu virus. In some cases, schools closed after multiple students begin to exhibit signs of the swine flu virus. In other cases, the closings were a precautionary measure to reduce the chances of an outbreak occurring among a large group of students (since it is common knowledge that during the regular flu season each year, schools are one of the places with the highest probability of spreading a virus between a large group of people).
However, even though schools all over the country had closed their doors in fear of the swine flu virus, the US government announced today that it is time for them to reopen their doors. Originally, the US government had recommended that schools around the country should be closed. According to Dr. Richard Besser, acting head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, now that the US government has had more time to evaluate the situation, they have concluded that closure is no longer warranted. He stated that while “We had a situation where we did not know very much about Mexico … we didn’t know nearly as much about virus transmission in this country,” now that they have been able to look into the issue more, they feel that “Anyone that closed their school based on our previous recommendation, we no longer believe that closure is warranted.”
It is important to note that it is recommended that any student who gets sick from the swine flu virus should «strong»stay home for a minimum of one week«/strong».