Dr. Peter C. Beilenson, who heads the Howard County Health Department, called it "an overreaction to close schools" based on a single probable case of the new virus. The CDC policy also suggests that entire school districts be closed if more than one school in the system has students believed to be infected, though Maryland officials say they haven't discussed that yet.
"If this was January and there were three kids out of high school [with the seasonal flu], we don't close the high school, and we certainly don't close the school district, for God's sake," Beilenson said.
The seasonal flu kills an average of 36,000 people in the U.S. each year and hospitalizes hundreds of thousands.
One of the reasons for the school closure policy change, officials said, is that CDC scientists have adjusted their estimate of the disease's incubation period, from three to seven days to seven to 10 days, meaning sick people are contagious longer than previously believed.
Cases of swine flu - now being called the H1N1 flu by health officials - have mostly been mild in the United States and nearly all have been linked to a person who has been to Mexico, where the disease is believed to have killed more than 100 and sickened many more. Still, health officials say they are acting cautiously because they just don't know what the virus will do since it is new and no one is protected from it.
"We're just one week into this," Dr. Anne Schuchat, CDC's interim deputy director for science and public health programs, told reporters. "More and more communities are being affected, and more people are being directly impacted."
More than 400 schools in 18 states were closed Friday because of possible swine flu cases, resulting in 250,000 children being dismissed from classes, according to a U.S. Department of Education spokesman. Five colleges or universities in four states were also closed.
With children out of school, parents are left scrambling for child care. "I did not for a second underestimate the economic challenge and the tremendous inconvenience that this may pose to many parents," O'Malley said. "Fortunately, there will be a weekend where parents have an opportunity to try to make some arrangements."
Meanwhile, health officials are discouraging students from congregating outside school, in places such as malls or at parties, where the virus could just as easily be spread as if they were in school.
