Students at Kennebunk Elementary School are headed back to class a day earlier than expected.
The school – closed last week after a student came in contact with someone who had swine flu – will reopen this morning, state officials said Tuesday.
The school had been expected to open Thursday at the earliest, but state officials changed their minds after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rewrote their guidelines for swine flu-related closures.
The CDC scrapped its recommendation that schools close for two weeks after a student or staffer contracts H1N1, instead calling for adults and children who contract the virus to remain home for seven days afterward.
The state Department of Education "will not be recommending to other schools that they close if and when Maine CDC identifies probable cases of H1N1 in students or staff," Commissioner Susan Gendron said in a written statement.
The decision came the same day health officials for the first time blamed swine flu for the death of a U.S. citizen. A Texas woman in her 30s died earlier this week; The Associated Press reported the woman had unspecified chronic health problems.
The number of H1N1 cases in Maine remained at seven Tuesday – one in Penobscot County, two in Kennebec County and four in York County. Kennebunk Elementary is the only school in the state to have closed because of swine flu.
Gendron and Dr. Dora Anne Mills urged the public to remain vigilant in preventing the spread of the virus – washing hands, covering coughs or sneezes and staying home from work or school if sick.
"We all have a responsibility to ourselves and each other," Mills, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement.
State officials closed Kennebunk Elementary last week, after they confirmed the parent of a student there had swine flu. They later determined that the student had contracted H1N1.
The school was originally closed for seven calendar days, meaning students would have returned to class Thursday morning.
Late last week, federal CDC officials urged schools to consider closing for 14 calendar days, depending on the severity of the illness.
That guidance sent state officials scurrying to determine the severity of the virus in York County and decide whether to close Kennebunk Elementary for an additional week. They were expected to annouce Tuesday whether they would keep the school closed for longer than expected.
That changed when federal officials announced their revised guidelines early Tuesday afternoon. Gendron gave local officials the green light to reopen the elementary school shortly afterward.
Federal officials said the change came as a result of ongoing research into the latest swine flu outbreak, which began in Mexico last month and has since spread across the globe.
Testing revealed the symptoms caused by the H1N1 virus are less severe than expected – similar to those caused by the seasonal flu. The CDC said the flu is spreading too quickly for school closures to stop it, and that continuing to call off classes would interrupt student learning with minimal benefits.
"There's a balance between the importance of making sure our children go to school every day and absorb the knowledge they need, and safety and security of those children," Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said during a conference call with reporters.
Gendron said Maine schools would close because of swine flu only if excessive absences interfere with a school's "ability to function."
In accordance with the latest federal guidelines, the Kennebunk Elementary student with H1N1 is recovering and will remain home today, said Maine Education Department spokesman David Connerty-Marin.
School Administrative District 71 officials posted a notice of the change on its Web site late in the...
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