A Hill day care center’s staff found a way to inform parents about swine flu in their midst without panicking them. It told the whole truth.
When a single case was confirmed at the Fay Miller Child Development Center on Cedar Street last Thursday, staff decided to wait one day, until Friday, to see if a second pending case was confirmed.
The second case turned out not to be H1N1, also known as swine flu. The first case was mild. Armed with the facts, health coordinator Maureen Ndzi (pictured) and other managers at the center swung into information and prophylactic action.
Other educational institutions have adopted different policies. The Worthington Hooker Middle School last week chose not to inform all its parents when 15 students were sent home in one day with swine flu-like symptoms. The schools have sent out general letters informing parents that swine flu is in the schools, but refraining from providing information about specific schools, in order to avoid panicking people.
The Hill daycare center chose not to keep parents in the dark. A letter was sent home to the parents of all 160 3‑to‑5 year-olds as well as 20 children aged eight weeks to three years.
The letter informed them of the singe confirmed case. That child, it went on to say, “was excluded from the center and is at home recovering.”
The one-page memo urged parents to keep kids with flu-like symptoms home and not to return them without doctor’s certification; and committed to a sanitation of the center over the upcoming weekend.
It seemed to work, Ndzi said, because the center was operating calmly as usual on Monday. Ndzi added that on Friday, as the letter to the parents went out, she visited each of the eight classes for the little kids, as well as the teachers of the babies, and reviewed extra hand-washing and other procedures and other precautions mandated by the state’s Department of Health.
The city’s day care centers are licensed under the state and get their directives in terms of precautions and procedures from the state, not the city’s Board of Ed .
“The state Department of Public Health,” said Lynn Hopson (pictured), the center’s executive director, “has guidelines which say if you have one case, no need to close down. If you have three, close down.”
Therefore they kept open Friday, but professionally sanitized, said Hoppson, both the Cedar Street and the James Street centers throughout the weekend. Crews worked, she said, from 7 to 4, both days. Both the Cedar Street center and the one on James Street, adjacent to Amistad Academy in Fair Haven, operate under the Lulac Head Start umbrella.
“Look,” said Hopson, “I felt panic was not a good response. Our parents work long jobs, and they depend on us.”
Widespread But Mild:
14 New Cases Everyday in the City
William Quinn, the city’s director of public health, confirmed that the state, not the city, is keeping track of flu in the child development centers.
It didn’t surprise him to hear of H1N1 at LULAC. “Look, it’s widespread throughout the state and in New Haven. At least 20 schools are involved,” he said.
He said that 14 new confirmed cases occur every day in the city. “But that’s absolutely expected.”
Quinn said that even though the city is not keeping track of day care attendance and absentee rates, which indicate the arc of the flu in the city, “we have a list serve about prevention aspects that we do send out to all the day cares as well.”
Quinn added that the most affected age group is grammar school kids, so he was not surprised to hear that nursery school age kids are also affected. He said he expects the number of cases to continue to rise.
“It’s usually quite mild,” he hastened to add. “And only four kids have been hospitalized, and every one of them has recovered. So we’re happy.”