Federal health officials issued new swine flu guidance for K-12 school districts on how to manage the decision on whether to close schools and how long students and staff with either confirmed or possible infections should stay home.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now advising against schools closing solely due to having a few or even numerous cases of swine flu. Instead, it's recommending that schools only consider closing if they have considerable numbers of at-risk students, for instance, students on ventilators or oxygen.

Furthermore, federal officials have greatly shortened the length of time they're recommending students remain out of school. Now they're saying students can return to school 24 hours after their fever ends. The previous guidance was for students to be kept home for seven days following the end of their fever.

Federal officials are changing the guidance because they have more information about the way swine flu spreads and are now more confident about that a less stringent approach towards schools closings will be just as effective in managing the crisis.

 

But they are also responding to concerns that widespread school closings can cause many unintended "social" consequences, as Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC said at a press briefing this morning.

He said:

... It's a balancing act. When you close a school, you have real social costs. You may reduce the spread of flu for a period of time, but you also increase the number of kids who may be unsupervised. You may add social stresses in the community.

You may reduce the number of health-care workers who are available, in the health-care system, to provide emergency response and care.

So there's a definite balancing in the decision of whether or not to close a school. That's why these guidelines provide general information but leave the decision to the local level, where the information is present.

Another issue that always weighs heavily on the minds of school officials and others is that many poor children receive their best meals of the day in school as part of the school-lunch program. So closing schools, increases food insecurity for some children.