Is the Swine Flu a real threat?

[mbarker]

This morning's news included the announcement that middle and high schools in the Osaka area would be closed for seven days in response to the swine flu. Apparently Kobe and Osaka have several "local" cases of the flu, among youngsters who have not been abroad. So the response is to close the schools to help avoid the spread of the flu.

My first reaction was that this made sense. But then I got to wondering. Will young people actually stay at home? Or will they swarm at the shopping centers and other places? For that matter, instead of having a routine to help compare how they feel against, which might help them realize they have the flu early, they will be on holiday lack of routine -- which could very well mean that early symptoms of the flu won't be noticed or attended to.

And of course, there is the problem that Japanese homes may not have someone who can easily stay home and take care of the kids. The assumption that at least one parent can drop everything to take care of the kids for a week or so is a bit out-of-date, I believe.

Will this flu become non-infectious over a short period of time? Or are we simply sending the infected kids out to become carriers who will infect more when school resumes? I'm not sure whether we know enough about the lifecycle and methods of infection yet to make the decision that this is an effective approach.

There seems to be some key assumptions here, such as if you close the schools, the kids will automatically quarantine themselves in their homes -- and that treating the dispersed population as families is effective? I have this bad feeling that we have just released the kids to shopping centers, playgrounds, and other sites that aren't as likely to use antibacterials and such?

I wonder if anyone has even tried to figure out what the kids really do in a situation like this? And what directions were they given?

I suppose this does indicate that our leadership is doing something, and perhaps it frees the schools from responsibility for kids who get sick in the next little bit. But my impression is that this may well be a move that appears reasonable but actually does very little to affect the problem.
 

Comments

And according to the evening news...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

In the affected areas, they have sold out of masks? Masks are popular here in Japan -- pseudo-surgical style, mostly gauze. People wear them when they have a cold, in theory to avoid giving your cold to other people. But apparently the stores have sold out of their supplies. Despite some leading medical people publicly admitting that they don't think the masks will do much to stop transmission of this virus.