A touch of reality.

A touch of the 'unreal' has invaded our little world.

Last tuesday evening, we were told of the death of a 5 year old child from Maternelle. The reason for death was unknown but on safety concerns the Maternelle school would be closed until further notice. Maternelle and the first two grades of Elementaire are on the same campus but at opposite ends of the property. Elementaire would stay open (ie. Zoe's class). I sent Zoe to school wednesday, but later discovered 6 from her class were missing that day.

Within 24 hours, it was confirmed the child had tested positive to H1N1, but it was not known if this was the cause of death.
I decided not to send Zoe to school on thursday; I was not prepared to take the risk, and as friday was a public holiday it made sense to keep her home as a precaution. It turned out most parents thought like me, and kept their children away from school.

Today is monday - the first day back to school after the 3 day break. We have been updated over the break. The Singapore Ministry of Health and the French Embassy are also heavily involved.

This is the procedure in place.

The school is effectively in a lock-down. Only one entrance into each of the two campus' is open. At each entrance a testing station is in place.

Every morning, every parent has to take their children's temperatures and record it on a form.
On presentation of this 'temperature form', the smaller children will be admitted onto the school grounds. They will then be tested again in the classroom before class by health inspectors.

Parents who wish to enter the school grounds, teachers and older students must undergo a temperature test at the school gate before admitttance.
Any child with a fever, cough, cold or muscular aches will be not permitted to school. Any child with any of these symptoms will not be permitted back to school without a medical certificate.

The Maternelle is still closed until further notice.

The Embassy and Lycee have arranged a seminar wednesday evening for the parents of the primary school and a prominent doctor to talk about H1N1.

From what I'm hearing, this poor little fellow was not well over the weekend with cold-like symptoms, but went to school on monday. During the day he collapsed and was sent by ambulance from school to hospital where he died that night.

I think I have now read most of the literature available on the internet about H1N1, and I'm still not sure what to do, or what I should do to protect my family. There have been 19 deaths due to H1N1 in Singapore. Craig trys to calm me by telling me that there are far more deaths from normal flu than H1N1, but it doesn't help. It's the fact that it's like russian roulette, you may get it, you may not and if you get it, you may die or you may not.