Swine Flu Declared "Public Health Emergency" [Update]

Photograph by David Karp/AP

Update, Noon: Mayor Bloomberg has announced that the CDC has confirmed that the eight students have tested positive for swine flu. St. Francis Prep will be closed tomorrow.

Earlier: The Center for Disease Control will soon be releasing their official findings on whether eight students from St. Francis Prep in Queens have in fact tested positive for swine flu, which has now led to over 80 deaths in Mexico. Health department officials said that the eight Queens students were positive for an A-strain flu virus but negative for all previously known A-strains. The “A-untypeable” result led officials to suspect it was the new swine flu.

On top of the now 100-plus St. Francis students who have reported symptoms, officials are also testing samples from a day care center in the Bronx, where over 30 students have turned up sick. Officials would not specify the specific location of the center.

But before we all start donning surgical masks and begin preparing to dine with our new porcine leaders ala Animal Farm, New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden is assuring everybody not to panic just yet. He said, “All the cases were mild, no child was hospitalized, no child was seriously ill." He also discouraged New Yorkers from checking into the hospital with any mild flu-like symptoms. Governor Paterson said that 1,500 treatment courses of the antiviral Tamiflu have been sent to New York City and Frieden assured, "The city is very well prepared. We've prepared for years at every level."

Speculation has been that the virus may have been transmitted by St. Francis students who had just traveled to Mexico over their recent Easter vacation. The Post calls it "a wild spring-break party to Cancun" and one mother tells them, "I personally know five or six kids who went on that trip, and they all seem to be sick. Then kids slap hands and touch things, and it spreads."

Despite the swine flu fears that led to the school being sanitized yesterday, alumni still went ahead and held reunions there last night for the classes of '84 and '59. One anonymous alum said, "We've been here all afternoon and saw nothing of concern. The party was great." The school is expected to be shut down tomorrow if the cases are confirmed. One parent upset that more precautions weren't taken told the News, "If there were children who came back [from Mexico] sick, the school should have informed parents about it."

Before the CDC's final results on the Queens students come back, 11 cases have been confirmed in the US in California, Kansas and Texas. There have been no deaths and officials say that most of the 11 seem to be recovering.