School districts shut down after spike in illness-related absences
Godley ISD, Comanche ISD, and Treetops School International in Euless are among the facilities to close for sanitation
Several Texas school districts are temporarily closing to sanitize their facilities following a spike in illness-related absences.
The Godley Independent School District will be closed until Feb. 3 after they reported a 70% to 80% attendance rate across all campuses.
WATCH HERE“Tuesday was our last day of school, and we had about 650 students out with the flu and several more that were leaving throughout the day,” Jeff Meador said. Meador is the chief communications officer for Godley ISD. “We had staff members out, too. So, at least 60 some that still weren’t feeling well that were at work or some that were going to need to leave to take care of their own kids.”
The district said they don’t take this decision lightly and will use this time to deep clean buildings and buses.
SIGN UP “Our custodians, plus some extra hands are all working at various campuses, doing deep cleaning and sanitizing just to make sure that we take care of any germs that are on the services,” Meador said.
They advised that students in extracurriculars contact their coach or sponsor for updates on practices and meetings. Youth athletic events will be canceled until Feb. 3 for all campuses.
Euless’s Treetop School International joined Godley, temporarily closing until Feb. 3 to sanitize classrooms, cafeterias, gyms and locker rooms.
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Comanche Independent School District said they were shutting down Jan. 28-29 and would reopen on Thursday.
DFW Hospital Council President and CEO Stephen Love said these absences match local hospital trends with increased flu-related admittance.
“Yes, our children’s hospitals are definitely seeing increased emergency room visits and it is even impacting some North Texas school districts,” Love said. “Our adult acute care hospitals are also seeing an increase in flu patients in the emergency departments. We are into flu season.”
The spike in flu cases, according to health experts, came much later than usual.
“It’s a significant increase week over week. I want to see greater than a 75% increase from prior weeks,” Dr. Preeti Sharma, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at U.T. Southwestern at Children’s Health said. “For the last couple of years, our highest number of flu cases has really been more mid to late December.”
Children’s Health said they saw a more than an 80% increase in just one week.
During the week of Jan. 19, Children’s Health saw the following respiratory viruses systemwide, which includes all outpatient, inpatient and ED visits:
- 783 Influenza A cases, an 83% increase from the week prior
- 165 RSV cases, a 20% decrease from the week prior
- 46 COVID-19 cases, about the same number of cases from the week prior
During the week of Jan. 12, Children’s Health saw the following respiratory viruses systemwide, which includes all outpatient, inpatient and ED visits:
- 425 Influenza A cases, a 28% increase from the week prior
- 207 RSV cases, a 30% decrease from the week prior
- 34 COVID-19 cases, about the same number of cases from the week prior
The steep increase has also had an effect across local pharmacies and medicine aisles.
“We’re having a hard time keeping in a lot of our over the counter (medicines),” Heather Vlassis, pharmacist in-charge at Parrone Pharmacy said. “The flu numbers are so high that it’s really hard to even keep the supply up for people who have even tested positive.”
“Tamiflu is definitely going to be after you see your doctor as you need a prescription for it. But it has to be taken within 48 hours. If you’re not taking it within 48 hours, it’s not going to help you,” Vlassis said. “XOFLUZA is definitely going to be one that you can take if you were exposed to help (and) to stop the flu from replicating in your body. So, you will not see signs or symptoms if you take it early enough.”
Some experts attribute the spike in part due low flu vaccination rates.
“We’re at an all-time low for flu shots. So, the biggest thing is to get out there. It’s not too late to get a flu shot,” Vlassis said.
Dr. Sharma echoed that it is not too late for flu vaccinations.
“It takes about two weeks to reach kind of your peak immunity from the flu vaccination, but you never know how long it’s going to last. So, it could still help,” Sharma said. “We don’t know how long this flu spike is going to last, and we don’t know when we’re going to see other strains of influenza like Flu B start to circulate in the community.”
