Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

ATTLEBORO, Mass. -- Could the flu outbreak at the Bishop Feehan High School be peaking?

Attendance was better today at the high school, according to Principal Bill Runey. A total of 239 students out of 1025 were absent from schoo. That's slightly lower than the 266 absent yesterday.

Runey said the outbreak appeared to begin Monday when the absentee numbers started coming in higher than average at 75 students. As the day progressed, more students were going to the nurse complaining about chills, headaches and a raspy cough. By the end of the day, the number of absentees had risen to 150.

On Tuesday, 220 students were absent, he said.

Runey called the Health Department. He said Ocean State Janitorial Service went through the building Monday, spraying to kill the virus and wiping down desk tops, locker handles, door handles, sinks and restrooms.

"At least it's better. Hopefully it peaked. The tough thing about this is that until the weather really warms up inevitably it could happen again," Runey said.

Runey said he has been at the school for three years and a total of 20 years in education and said he had never seen such an outbreak.

"I haven't seen anything of this magnitude. During cold and flu season, there will be a higher absentee rate than usual.This is certainly atypical," he said.

Runey said the because of the flu outbreak, the high school postponed a science fair planned at the high school cafeteria for Feb. 4 to Feb. 11.

 Tags  Attleboro flu

Leave a comment

Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published. Name and email are required; email address will not publish.

Name:

Email:

URL:  

Remember personal info?

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.