October 28, 2007
School Officials Try to Reassure Parents Over Superbug
As more cases of staph infections are being reported (a Newark public school security guard has MRSA, leading the school to be disinfected), parents are growing increasingly concerned about how schools are responding to the epidemic. Yesterday, school officials held a meeting at IS 211 in Brooklyn, the school Omar Rivera Jr. attended before dying from MRSA two weeks ago, to explain how it is dealing with the potentially deadly disease.
The Post reports the school was cleaned with "used bleach and a product called Spray 9 - which purports to kill 'superbug' MRSA in 45 seconds" - on "floors, ceilings, walls, desks and doorknobs on Wednesday." Additionally, the DOE handed out Zicam (?) and emphasized procedures to ensure that students would remain healthy - like thorough hand washing and keeping cuts covered. Parents had mixed reactions - some were reassured/resigned ("there isn't much [the school] can do") to irritated, because the school did not contact parents immediately after the child's death.
The meeting was closed to the public, causing State Senator John Sampson (who is also Foxy Brown's lawyer) to fume, "We need to know what's happening. I'm getting calls from constituents. This secrecy is a microcosm of the way the entire situation was handled." But he DOE says all meetings are closed to the public at the discretion of parent leaders.
The Health Department, DOE, and Public Advocate issued a public statement on Friday (Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said, "Staph is both preventable and treatable") with these tips:
- Students, educators, and others should wash their hands regularly with soap and water.
- Schools must ensure that sufficient soap and paper towels are available in all bathrooms.
- Schools should clean “flat surfaces” every day. This includes desktops, cafeteria tables, door knobs, toilet seats, sinks, drinking fountains.
- Students should not share towels or other similar personal items during sports or other activities. They should also wipe down shared athletic equipment between users.
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Zicam is a flu medicine.
Why haven't those general guidelines been followed all along? This kind of laziness perplexes me.
Also, I do have to wonder if this is really an epidemic or if the media is only now making a big deal out of it. Not to pull from an only mediocre book, but one of the more interesting factoids I remember from The Tipping Point is the year of the shark, which took place in 2001. The news had us believe that sharks were out to kill us all in great numbers. People were in a frenzy in certain areas and began taking matters into their own hands and began needlessly killing sharks. And then not two months later terrorist highjacked airplanes and killed thousands of people. Suddenly, the news had something real to report on and the sharks were no longer the terrorists.
It has been proven since that the number of shark attacks that year was actually less than in previous years.
I'm not saying that staff infections aren't horrible but I am asking if MRSA infections are indeed a growing trend or if the reporting of MRSA infections is.
"Students, educators, and others should wash their hands regularly with soap and water.
Schools must ensure that sufficient soap and paper towels are available in all bathrooms.
Schools should clean “flat surfaces” every day. This includes desktops, cafeteria tables, door knobs, toilet seats, sinks, drinking fountains."
Yeah, I see this regime lasting about a week before the lazy janitorial staff slack off. Ever wonder why hospitals are so dirty? The bloody retards that are hired as orderlies, nurses and janitors couldn't care less about their "jobs", as long as they get those paychecks.
I couldn't agree more with mihow. Remember when the avian bird flu was an "epidemic"? Anyone heard recently of anyone succumbing to avian bird flu? A lot of public health scares are generated by and for the media.
the flesh eating bacteria will be making it's comeback.