ANOTHER school goes into ‘flu lockdown’: Kansas elementary school closes for three days and will ‘sanitize the building’ – with a THIRD of teachers and students sick

An elementary school in Kansas was closed for three days this week after being hit by a wave of respiratory illnesses among students and staff.

Christ the King Catholic School, a K-8 school with 250 students and 21 teachers in Kansas City, Kansas, closed Wednesday after more than 50 children and seven staff members called in sick.

Officials plan to decontaminate the building during non-business days. It reopens on Monday.

It comes amid a nationwide outbreak of the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) that has hit young children the hardest.

Children’s hospitals across the US are reporting they are at or near capacity as a surge in cases overwhelms emergency rooms.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 7,945 new RSV infections in the week ending November 5.

This is a big shift from the fewer than 2,000 cases reported in early September.

Just over 1,300 cases of the flu were reported nationwide this week – down from just a few hundred in August and the highest number so far this flu season.

Due to the sharp increase, dozens of schools across the country have been temporarily closed due to staffing issues or to prevent the virus from spreading further.

Experts have warned that this year’s flu season would be worse than in previous years, after countermeasures during the pandemic left many people’s immune systems ill-prepared.

These flu closures also reflect the devastating school policies enacted in the early months of the pandemic.

Confirmed flu cases reached 13,806 in the week ending November 5, a new high for this season and a strong increase over previous weeks

Confirmed RSV cases reached 12,905 in the week ending October 29, while the number of positive tests reached 18.8 percent in the week ending November 5

The CDC reports that 21 states have “high” or “very high” flu activity and six have moderate activity

“Given the high number of positive influenza A and RSV cases among our faculty, staff and students, we will also disinfect the building,” the school wrote on its Facebook page.

School officials told local news agency KMBC that they had closed the school in anticipation of further spread of the disease.

Cathy Fithian, the school’s principal, also said staff shortages played a role in the decision.

“If you can’t staff your building and you don’t have teachers in the classrooms, you just can’t have a school,” she said.

This is not the first school to be closed due to increasing flu cases.

Brighton School in Baton Rouge, LA — a special school for students with dyslexia — closed Oct. 25 due to rising cases of respiratory illness.

Aquadale Elementary School and South Stanly Middle School, both just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, were closed on October 25 and 26.

In Decatur, Alabama, near the state’s northern border, Austinville Elementary School was closed for a week from October 25-31.

Lynchburg-Clay elementary, middle and high schools in the Cincinnati, Ohio area all closed or began virtual learning on Nov. 4 amid an outbreak of a respiratory illness.

All eight schools in Union County, Kentucky, were closed on November 7 due to a flu outbreak.

Thirteen schools in Marshall County, Alabama were also closed for four days this week.

There are fears that such school closures could leave children behind after extensive virtual learning caused social development problems in American children in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Studies also show that many have fallen behind in key disciplines such as math and reading.

Health officials have long warned that this year’s flu season will be more brutal than in years past.

Common viruses like the flu largely disappeared in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, as masking and social distancing prevented the spread.

However, they are roaring back this year as many lack the necessary immune protection to ward off the virus.

Some have even warned of “tripleemia” as the flu, RSV and COVID-19 usually peak at the end of the year.

Confirmed RSV cases hit a new high in the week ending Oct. 29, when the CDC reported 12,905 infections.

Although the weekly numbers have fallen since then, a stabilization in test positivity suggests that the actual number of cases is still rising.

Test positivity is considered a more accurate measure of an outbreak because it accounts for variations in the number of tests performed.

The positivity rate of 18.8 percent in the week ending November 5 is the highest so far this season – slightly better than the previous week’s figure of 18.7 percent.

The virus poses a major threat to young children. The CDC reports that up to 500 children in America die from RSV each year.

In young children, infection can often cause pneumonia or inflammation of the airways in the lungs. These are potentially fatal symptoms.

The flu is sweeping America for the first time since Covid, with the southern US the hardest hit.

According to the CDC, a group of southern states are being ravaged by the flu.

According to the CDC, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia are all reporting the highest flu activity.

Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico and Texas report “very high”.

The US is currently seeing 40,835 new infections each day, up nine percent from the past two weeks.

America is also suffering 326 deaths from the virus every day, down nine percent in 14 days.