CDC confirms nine swine flu cases in Washington state

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed nine cases of swine flu in Washington state — seven in King County and one each in Snohomish and Spokane counties, Washington Secretary of Health Mary Selecky said today.

"This is no surprise," Selecky said during a news conference, noting that nearly all suspected cases nationwide are confirmed with additional testing.

In addition, the state reported 13 new probable cases this afternoon, nine in King County and four in Snohomish. The statewide tally now stands at 58 cases, including the nine confirmed as swine flu. King County now has 29 probable cases and Snohomish has 17.

Selecky also said the new flu strain appears similar to seasonal flu that rolls through each year. That's good news for health officials who feared the illness might be more severe than typical flu.

Meanwhile, all Puget Sound-area schools that had been shuttered because of swine flu reopened today as the front-line defense against the spread of the virus shifted to parents.

The message: Parents should check for symptoms of flu and keep children home if they appear ill.

"We are asking parents and families to take primary responsibility for the health of their children," said Dr. Jeff Duchin, chief of communicable-disease control for Public Health — Seattle & King County. "Closing one school at a time was never meant to be a long-term response."

All nine schools in the state that were closed for a day or longer now have reopened.

The list includes six schools reopening today: Aki Kurose Middle School, Madrona K-8 and Stevens Elementary in Seattle (all on a two-hour delay); Woodmont K-8 (starting at 10:15 a.m., with no morning kindergarten) and Midway Elementary in Des Moines; and Jackson Elementary in Everett.

Madrona, the first to close, was out the longest — three days.

Duchin said it no longer made sense to automatically shut down a school over an isolated infection. Not only does the virus appear to have already spread throughout the community, Duchin said, but most infected people have become only mildly ill.

Federal health authorities also are retreating from aggressive school closures.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) until now has suggested closing schools for up to two weeks for confirmed or probable swine-flu cases.

"We are looking at our school-closure guidance, and we're having very active discussions about whether it's time to revise that," said Dr. Richard Besser, the CDC's acting director.

The plan in King and Snohomish counties now is to focus on keeping sick children out of school. Schools also are to stay alert to possible flu cases showing up among students and staff.

School districts welcomed the change in health-department policy, even if it is a challenge to explain to parents why a school had to be closed one day but could reopen only days later.

"We in education are used to having rules that do not change," the Everett School District wrote to parents. "In this situation, however, we are learning as we go — as is the rest of the nation."

Most of schools that were closed planned to hold staff meetings this morning, and some will have public-health officials on hand to answer parents' questions, too.

Schools will continue to send home students who show flu symptoms, and several districts said parents should be prepared for that.

For some schools, the closures, while difficult, weren't as disruptive as they could have been. At Stevens Elementary in Seattle, for example, students had finished taking the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, and an annual outdoor camp for fifth-graders was still a couple weeks away.

Donn Moyer, a spokesman for the Washington State Department of Health, said test kits have arrived from the CDC that will enable the state laboratory in Shoreline to make confirmations, cutting the turnaround time from about a week to two or three days.

Duchin said health officials reversed their recommendation on school closures because they were disruptive and "not the best method to control the spread [of swine flu] in the community."

Duchin said local health officials initially opted to close the schools partly to assess the potential threat from the virus, even though they consistently have said that it appears to cause symptoms not much different from seasonal flus.

Schools still could close again if swine flu were to spread rapidly through a school, said Dr. Gary Goldbaum, director and health officer of the Snohomish Health District.

So far, almost all the cases in Washington have been isolated.

Duchin said investigators have yet to find a pattern that might explain how the infections occurred.

Kyung M. Song: 206-464-2423 or ksong@seattletimes.com. Seattle Times staff reporter Janet I. Tu, The Associated Press and McClatchy Newspapers contributed to this report.