Kansas school dismisses students early for holiday break when sickness spreads

Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control for the University of Kansas Health System, encourages Kansans to get the flu vaccine as the country is seeing increased influenza cases. (Kansas Reflector screen capture from KU Health System on Facebook)

TOPEKA — A Kansas school district dismissed classes on Monday three days earlier than planned after reporting a “tremendous amount of sickness” that appeared to be spreading at a high rate. 

Dexter Schools, USD 471 in Cowley County, announced in a Facebook post that it would cancel school and all activities starting Tuesday. The second quarter was supposed to end Thursday. 

“Not only are we concerned with student and staff sickness, now we don’t want to continue to spread the sickness and end up with students taking it to their extended families (grandma and grandpa) over the holiday break,” the post said.

The Kansas database tracking influenza, COVID-19 and other respiratory infection visits to hospital emergency departments did not show a big jumpover the past few weeks, but there was an uptick.

Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control for the University of Kansas Health System, said the state trends for influenza match what has happened in the last two to three years. 

“The overall trends of the influenza activity, as well as with RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and COVID, right now continues to be low, but it is increasing,” Hawkinson said. “It has been increasing over the past couple of weeks, so we are seeing more testing and more percentage of positive tests as well. This is nationally, but also at our institution as well.”

The school district’s post didn’t specify what type of illness was going around and Kansas Reflector’s call to the district office Friday went unanswered. Hawkinson said rhinovirus has been more prevalent so far this season, with more cases than COVID-19, influenza or RSV. 

Rhinovirus is a virus that causes the common cold, and it can cause complications for people with conditions like asthma and other underlying medical issues, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

As flu season moves forward, Hawkinson encouraged people to get flu, COVID-19, RSV and other appropriate vaccines. 

The flu vaccine each year is developed in the spring months, using data from countries in the Southern hemisphere during the winter months to extrapolate which viruses could be prominent in the United States, Hawkinson said. 

It can take months for production to occur, and, occasionally, researchers will discover they excluded a predominant virus from the shot, he said. Typically, the shot includes three to four different viruses. 

This year, the CDC reported that an influenza A variant, referred to as subclade K, is making the rounds this year, and some media have called it a “super flu.” 

Hawkinson said variants are a consistent part of the influenza season and vaccines help.

Vaccines may not stop someone from getting the flu, but data shows people will experience a  reduction in the severity of symptoms and decreased the risk of going to the hospital, he said. 

“The vaccine is to protect you and build up your immune system so that when you do get infected, you have that immunity there to help fight off the virus,” Hawkinson said. 

The influenza vaccine is not a live virus, so it will not cause illness in anyone who gets it, he said.

Already this flu season, two children have died from influenza-associated illness nationally, the CDC reported.  

Vaccines for flu, COVID-19 and RSV are important tools to fight the annual spike of viruses and stop the spread, Hawkinson said. 

The mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 is safe, he added, and three recent studies underlined that it is effective.  One study of young people who contracted COVID-19 infections showed the vaccine reduced by 75% the risk of going to the hospital or an emergency room. 

Another large study conducted over four years in France showed the COVID-19 vaccine reduced risk of death from severe COVID and also reduced death from all causes, Hawkinson said.

A third study showed that pregnant mothers who got the COVID-19 vaccine were less likely to go to the hospital, experience severe illness or be placed in intensive care if they contracted COVID-19, Hawkinson said. They also were at a lower risk of having a preterm birth, he said.