New Haven Independent

On Wednesday the state reported the first confirmed H1N1 case to “affect” the city school system, of an unidentified student at an unidentified school.

Since then, eight more confirmed student cases have come back, city Health Director Quinn reported Friday afternoon. Of those affected, nine are students in public schools. He didn’t identify the schools.

The outbreak followed one in Hamden, where swine flu forced a school to close Friday and Monday.

The nine cases were confirmed by State Department of Health lab tests, according to Quinn.

The cases haven’t been serious, except for one involving an adult, Quinn said. No one else was hospitalized.

The nine students don’t include private school students or New Haveners who travel to suburban public schools, Quinn said.

“These kids had symptoms like a mild cold and were fine in two days,” Quinn said.

Meanwhile Friday, Hooker Middle School, which is temporarily housed at the old St. Stanislaus School on State Street, saw a stream of students with flu-like symptoms, Quinn confirmed. He said 15 such students from Hooker School were sent home, most of them from the middle school branch, which includes grade 3 through 8.

“If in fact they had influenza-like symptoms, most likely it is the swine flu,” Quinn said.

“Everybody needs to understand that we do have swine flu like almost every other city, in the city and in the school system. There’s so much going around. In a lot of cases testing is not done because it’s mild,” Quinn said.

“Certainly 15 kids getting sent home, that could be swine flu,” Quinn said.

“It just happened. We will call the state first thing Monday morning, once we find out in fact what these kids were sent home for. If they were [indeed] flu-like symptoms,” then the city will request state testing.

If the state can’t do the testing, “if they’re sick enough to go to the doctor, we’ll ask the doctor to do it.”

He said his department is monitoring absentee records at city schools to spot any disturbing trends.

William Clark, chief operating officer for the city school system, said there are no plans to close Hooker Middle Monday.

However, Clark said Superintendent Reggie Mayo has asked him to monitor the situation over the weekend. Clark said he’s working with the school building’s owner to monitor cleaning of the school, and with the health department to stay abreast of the 15 students’ health.

If officials decide to close Hooker Middle on Monday, parents will receive phone calls, and the news will appear on the school system’s website, Clark said.

Citywide, he and Quinn said, keeping on top of daily attendance records is key.

“People say, ‘You’ve got to name the school’ [every time a case is confirmed]. If you name the school, it only serves to concern people. Everyone else says, ‘My school doesn’t have it.’ That’s why attendance is the key,” Quinn said. “So far, attendance has been absolutely normal” until Friday at Hooker Middle.

“Swine flu is certainly increasing. It has increased dramatically over this past week. It probably would continue to do that.”

“We’re very fortunate it’s a mild flu right now,” Quinn said.

“It’s hard to get a handle on how many swine flu cases are truly in the city.”

“We may have many, many more cases,” he said.