Don’t Let The Flu “Bug” You!
According to the Center for Disease Control, the flu season can start as early as October and last until May. Fighting the flu starts with 2 simple steps.
1. The flu vaccination is recommended for anyone 6 months of age and older. Those considered high risk, including pregnant women, young children and adults over the age of 65 should have a vaccine. Although not available for children under the age of 6 months, those who care for infants should be vaccinated to prevent spreading the flu to those too young for the vaccination.
2. The second step is prevention with healthy habits. Prevention is key to stopping the spread of germs. Healthy habits include hand washing, covering your cough/sneeze, avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, and social distancing.
- Hand washing– Always wash hands with soap and water. If soap and water are not available, alcohol based sanitizer can be used.
- Social distancing– This means staying away from others when you are sick and avoiding contact with those who are ill. If you experience flu-like symptoms, the CDC recommends limiting contact with others until you have been fever free for 24 hours. Someone is considered fever free when there is an absence of fever without the aid of fever reducing medications.
For more information on these steps, as well as information on how to protect your family this flu season, please visit: www.cdc.gov/flu
To help control the spread of illness in our school please follow these illness guidelines:
- Fever-Keep student home until fever free for 24 hours without the use of medication
- Vomiting, Diarrhea, GI upset-keep home until symptom free for 24 hours without the use of medication.
When reporting your student absent due to illness please give a brief description of the illness such as sore throat, fever, vomiting, flu, strep throat. This will help with illness tracking and reporting to the health department.
