After the CDC warned of a potentially severe flu season, it seems to have hit the Chicago area Monday morning. A quarter of the student body at Nazareth Academy in La Grange Park called in sick with the flu. By lunchtime, they were sending everyone home.
Dr. Terry Mason, the head of the Cook County Department of Public Health, says their weekly reports show the flu has hit harder and earlier than in the past two years.
Classes at Nazareth Academy were also cancelled Tuesday and Wednesday so the administration could deep clean the school and give the students a chance to recover before next week's final exams.
"Anywhere you have people that are congregated together, there's a higher likelihood that you're going to spread any disease. Flu is one of them," Dr. Mason said.
Public health authorities say there's another cause for worry this year concerning the effectiveness of the flu vaccine.
One of the influenza virus strains in this year's vaccine underwent a mutation, making the vaccine less effective, said Michael Vernon, the director of communicable disease control at the Cook County Department of Public Health. But the vaccine still offers some protection, he said.
"The flu is very unpredictable," Vernon said. "There's no way of telling how soon this will peak and start going down or what the rest of the season is likely to look like."
