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All the local news sources are reporting that “swine flu closes” a Rogers Park school. Technically, and I think this is somewhat important, caution about a suspected/probable case of swine flu has closed the school, and NBC5 is diligent in describing what probable actually means; it’ll be a day or two until the CDC confirms whether the cases are swine flu, since the symptoms aren’t all that different from seasonal influenza. The NYT‘s Well Blog has a good discussion of the trouble with symptoms. CIDRAP at the University of Minnesota has the actual CDC definitions for the categories confirmed, probable, and suspected (scroll down).
André Picard of the Globe and Mail details how Canada has improved its public response to infectious disease in the wake of SARS, and urges calm in the face of a degree of inevitability: “Infections rise according to a predictable pattern, following an increasingly rapid curve until they hit a peak, then tail off. This is precisely what is happening with swine flu.”
In the NYT, Dr. Lawrence Altman notes why experts don’t yet know how serious the situation is, and the information they’re seeking out and/or waiting on.
