Practically half of Virginia highschool out sick because of flu-like, gastrointestinal signs in thriller outbreak

Practically half of the scholars at a Virginia highschool missed faculty Friday with flu-like or gastrointestinal signs, officers mentioned, with an investigation into the origins of the mysterious outbreak. is in progress.

About 1,000 college students had been absent Friday at Stafford Excessive Faculty in Fredericksburg, Virginia, with a number of flu-like and gastrointestinal signs, mentioned Sandra Osborn, communications director for Stafford County Public Colleges.

That is nearly half of the college’s inhabitants of two,100 college students.

Stafford Excessive Faculty opened on Monday and “we’re reassessing situations this morning,” Osborn mentioned.

The district performed a deep cleansing and disinfecting of the college over the weekend.

Osborn mentioned different colleges within the district didn’t see the identical variety of pupil absences because of sickness.

Stafford Excessive Faculty canceled all faculty and athletics-related actions for the weekend, “as a result of excessive variety of pupil and workers sicknesses reported this week,” in response to the college’s Fb web page. .

In an replace Monday, the district mentioned 670 college students had been out of college and all after-school sports activities and actions could be canceled by Tuesday at the highschool.

The district mentioned officers have investigated the college’s taps and meals providers and “don’t imagine there’s a hyperlink between both of these providers and these sicknesses.”

The varsity will “proceed to vigorously clear every day till faculty attendance returns to regular,” in response to the replace.

The investigation – performed by the college district, the Virginia Division of Well being, and the Rappahannock Space Well being Division – has thus far recognized a lot of college students who’ve examined constructive for the flu.

“We’re additionally seeing gastrointestinal signs, which might be as a result of flu or presumably a separate sickness,” the replace mentioned.

VDH recommends conserving colleges open and persevering with with mitigation measures.

The Rappahannock Regional Well being District mentioned in an announcement Monday, “the origin of the sickness has not been decided, and till now we have extra info, we can not draw conclusions.”