County on the look out for flu cases

School sends one kid home while being extra cautious

Gunnison County continues to monitor the swine flu situation. Now known as H1N1, there are just over 400 confirmed cases in the United States with ten of those in Colorado.

The RE1J school district decided to play it safe and ask students who visited Mexico after the flu came on the radar to stay home for seven days after returning to the country. One Crested Butte family sent their child to school Monday, before the requested seven-day curfew expired. He was immediately sent home until Wednesday. His elementary school classroom was sterilized and RE1J district nurse Dawn Helman said the staffs at all the district facilities have been working extra hard to keep the school more germ-free than normal.
“It’s considered less of an issue now than a week ago but we followed the recommendation of the state and the county and asked students who returned directly from Mexico to stay home for seven days,” she said. “There was a student in Crested Butte and one in Gunnison and neither had any flu symptoms but we wanted to be conservative. The seven day periods are now over and everything is good.”
According to the county’s medical officer and incident commander, Dr. John Tarr, “people should be applauded who take the personal responsibility to protect the public from infection by staying home when they are either sick or have been exposed to the H1N1 virus.”
Gunnison County has received its share of the Strategic National Stockpile of anti-virals. The county public health department recommends everyone wash their hands frequently, cover your sneezes and coughs and avoid others with respiratory illnesses. If you do get any flu-like symptoms, it is recommended you stay home for seven days.