Rapid rise in outbreaks in schools
The following data is taken from the Centre for Health Protection website on reports of outbreaks of influenza and ILI in schools (except for 1 in a hospital and 1 in a residential home).
| Date | Suspected | Confirmed | | March 6 | 1 | 1 | | March 7 | 12 | 1 | | March 10 | 9 | 0 | | March 11 | 23 | 4 | | March 12 | 20 | 3 | | Total | 65 | 9 |
This is the official count up to March 12, a total of 74 reports of outbreaks in schools from the beginning of March and obviously rapidly rising in number.
One newspaper reports an additional 23 schools with cases yesterday.
(Edit: Final count from the CHP was 50 reports of outbreaks for March 13, 41 suspected, 9 confirmed.)
School Closure
The sequence of events leading to announcement of a general school closure has been confusing and chaotic. Initially, only the school in Tuen Muen where one of the deceased (7-year old boy) had attended was closed for 'disinfection' and also because about 30+ students were out sick, with 7 in hospital.
As late as yesterday afternoon (2:30pm 12 March), the Health Minister York Chow was still adamant there was no need for a general school closure.
But Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat Ngok said there was no need to have a territory-wide closure of schools. He urged people to stay calm.
"We are closely monitoring the situation now and we do not see the need to close all schools at this stage. But if the outbreak of the flu-like disease becomes more serious, we may consider that.
Dr Chow said it was up to individual schools to make the decision whether to close or not.
THAT last statement may have been the proverbial straw towards the subsequent chaos. One of the schools with rapidly rising cases first decided to close. YL Public Middle School Alumni Association Primary School (in a different district, Yuen Long) had 32 students and teachers reported sick due to ILI on Friday, but this increased rapidly to 100 on Tuesday alone. They announced that the school would close early for Easter.
Coincidentally, there was apparently a meeting of heads of schools in the Tuen Muen school district. Some of the schools became very concerned, and many parents started calling in to say their kids were sick, just so they could keep them home. Some parents who were walking their kids to school turned around after they started hearing about school closures and as the news of the latest death spread. One parent said "I have only one son, I don't want anything to happen to him."
At the same time the Centre for Health Protection was holding a series of territory-wide public meetings to address the concerns of teachers and school heads, who repeatedly asked to be given better 'metrics' or criteria as guidance for school closure. There was a lot of confusion and no consensus as to when schools should close.
U-turn on school closure appears to have been led by the Chief Executive and the highest levels of government based on the rising concerns from school heads and the general public. In a late night (10:30pm) announcement, the Health Minister announced all primary schools, kindergartens, nurseries, and special care facilities would close tomorrow.
While this might be the correct decision from the public health point of view, it nevertheless drew sharp criticism from all sides mainly because of the hastiness and more importantly how late at night this was announced. Read the following from the South China Morning Post
Schools prepare for chaos after order to close
Teachers and parents furious at government's late-night decision to cancel classes
Paggie Leung, Martin Wong, Mary Ann Benitez and Agnes Lam
Mar 13, 2008
Educators criticised the government's 11th-hour decision to close all primary schools and kindergartens, saying it had made it difficult for them to inform parents and pupils.
Schools were desperately scrambling last night to have teachers ready to handle the expected chaos, fear and confusion from parents and students who would be expecting to attend normal Thursday classes.
Li Kin-fai, a teacher at Aplichau Kaifong Primary School, said: "This is very sudden and a bit too urgent. If they had informed us earlier - before 6pm - we could have adopted emergency plans and maybe called parents about the suspension."
The decision to close the schools amid the flu outbreak was made by health minister York Chow Yat-ngok at 10.30pm.
Mr Li said the situation would be chaotic this morning and he had arranged for some teachers to arrive at school early.
Parents were also disappointed at the late decision. Mary Sze, a teacher and mother of a three-year-old, found out moments before she went to bed.
"I need to get up at 6am. I usually go to bed at around 10pm. Thank God my sister called me and told me, otherwise my mother-in-law would have brought my daughter to wait for the school bus early in the morning.
Peter Lam, who has a four-year-old son, was also angry.
"We don't watch television early in the morning because we have to rush to work. This is not like we're having a typhoon and we have to keep checking the news and see whether schools will be closed. How would we know that the government would issue the closure order so late?
"The government should know that teachers and children go to bed earlier. If my sister-in-law hadn't called me, I would not know about the school closure." |
