'It's not the plague'
Flu scare hits close to home

By Doug Russell, News Editor

STIGLER, Sept. 3 — The H1N1 flu virus is just that: a flu virus much like any other.

It’s not bubonic plague, anthrax or some other equally deadly disease.

“It’s a flu. Simple. You take the same precautions as you would for a seasonal flu,” said Leslie Covey, spokeswoman for the Haskell County Health Department. “There’s no need for people to panic.”

But a television report that said officials are expecting up to 90,000 deaths from the H1N1 flu has people worried — even though the story was quickly played down, with health officials lowering morbidity estimates to less than one-third the original report.

In one LeFlore County community, Covey said, a child was found to have a flu virus — and worried parents were showing up the rest of the day, pulling students out of class.

“That case wasn’t even confirmed,” Covey said. “Because it’s no longer cost effective to test every case, they’re treating every case of Type A flu as if it was H1N1. That doesn’t mean every Type A case is H1N1. It just means that’s the way it’s being treated.

“It’s a flu. The public needs to treat it as such, just as they would a regular flu.”

Assistant Stigler Superintendent Clayton Edwards said school officials know of no confirmed cases of H1N1 flu in the Stigler school system. “We may have kids out, but we have kids out all the time. Parents will pick their kids up or keep them home when they’re not feeling well.”

Asked if the schools had sent any children home because they were believed to have had the flu, Edwards said, “I’m not aware of any. If a student says he’s not feeling well and the school calls the parents to come and get him — that’s normal. It happens all the time. But sending a student home? Telling them they have to go home? I haven’t heard of any cases like that.”

Edwards said Tuesday that, as far as he was aware, absenteeism in the Stigler schools was no higher than normal.

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