Swine flu closes 157 Michigan schools

Michigan records 157 closures Wednesday, including the first in Metro Detroit area

Kim Kozlowski / The Detroit News

The H1N1 virus led to the closing of 157 schools in Michigan on Wednesday, including the first in Metro Detroit.

Trinity Lutheran School, a private school in Clinton Township, closed Wednesday because of a high number of absences this week and will remain closed until Monday.

Gordon Kennedy, the school's principal, could not be reached. But in a blog posting to parents, he explained student absences hit 74 Monday and 64 Tuesday, although not all were related to sickness. There were about seven students reported to have the H1N1 virus.

Trinity Lutheran on Harper Road was closed this week as a teacher conference would have closed the school today and Friday anyway.

"Hopefully, this will allow the virus to run its course," Kennedy said on the blog. "My hope is that you keep an eye on your child and keep them away from others who might have developed any flu-like symptoms."

Another 156 Michigan schools were closed Wednesday, an increase of 103 since Tuesday, when 53 schools were closed. Most that were closed Wednesday were in the central and northern part of the state, with a high concentration in Grand Traverse County.

The spike did not alarm state health officials, who said last week began with only a few school closings but climbed to 252 by the end of the week.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encourages schools to stay open, but there are cases when they must close, state officials say.

"Schools and local county health departments are being cautious," said James McCurtis, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Community Health. "If they are seeing a lot of absences and children being sick, the thing for them to do is to protect the children and makes sure the virus doesn't continue spreading."

The school closings come as H1N1 clinics began opening around the state, but the vaccine has been slow to arrive. So far, Michigan has been allocated 510,000 doses of the vaccine -- which is one third of the 1.5 million doses that the CDC said in August that Michigan would have by mid-October.

Across the country schools are closing by the dozen as officials say they're being hit so hard by swine flu that they feel shutting down for a few days is the only feasible option.

The U.S. Education Department says at least 351 schools were closed last week alone -- affecting 126,000 students in 19 states. So far this school year, about 600 total schools have temporarily closed.

The number of closures this year appears on target to surpass the roughly 700 schools closed last spring when the swine flu outbreak first hit. Flu season hasn't peaked yet, and each day more schools are closing.

kkozlowski@detnews.com (313) 222-2024 The Associated Press contributed.