The merry month of May is here, the weather has finally turned, and just as Spring Fever is infectiously spreading through our nation’s schools, so too is a bug of a different sort: the H1N1 flu.

Unlike other epidemics that spread mostly through nursing homes and hospitals, this one seems to favor classrooms. Hundreds of schools are closed across Texas and more than a dozen so far in New York. The big question on everyone’s mind: What can we do to stop this flu?

It seems like a no-win situation. When H1N1 comes to town and local schools shut down, parents of healthy children are left without childcare and worry that their children are being unfairly deprived of valuable school time. On the other hand, when schools remain open, parents feel like their children are at risk and schools aren’t doing enough to protect them.

Unfortunately, health officials seem pretty stumped as well and are offering conflicting advice. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which had previously advised schools to close down for two weeks if a case of H1N1 was found, changed their tune on May 4th by saying that shutting down schools is not effective.

How about keeping schools open but disinfecting them? Useless, say the experts, since if even a single student comes back to school with the flu, everything he/she touches will be recontaminated. (And students with the virus are contagious for a day even before they start showing symptoms, so keeping sick kids at home helps but only to a point.)

In fact, even if all schools closed down one month early for the summer, children (especially teens) will still congregate in malls, at parks, and especially at summer camps.

The best suggestions I’ve heard so far is from experts who recommend keeping schools open but enforcing better hygiene practices. Why not have kids in infected areas wear surgical masks in school, at least until school lets out for the year? And have antibacterial wipes or pumps in every classroom so students can disinfect themselves throughout the day. (How to convince teens to comply is another story.)

In the meantime, as per my previous post on the subject,  I’m still holding out on worrying. Mostly because even though the flu seems to be spreading pretty quickly, its symptoms are still quite mild and the number of fatalities in the US very low. (Funny how articles in the mainstream press tend to omit that little fact.) I actually had the flu a few months ago, albeit not of the swine variety, and despite the discomfort of achy muscles, a high fever, dry cough, dry mouth, headache, and even a fainting spell, I lived to tell the tale. I don’t blame parents for wanting to keep their children healthy, but it really is just the flu we’re talking about here.

(Photo: jere-me’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons)