Claim: 'Do we really want to close schools?' U.S. authorities resist coronavirus closures.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States by state
text: of the disease that does not appear life-threatening. Three high schools in Riverside County were closed April 29 after two teenage girls, from Corona and Indio respectively, were confirmed to have contracted the virus. Branham High School in San Jose was closed that day for a week after one teenage girl was confirmed to be a probable case. Rucker Elementary School in Gilroy is set to be closed on Friday, May 1 after at least one student was being tested after exhibiting flu-like symptoms. Three students at the Grizzly Youth Academy in San Luis Obispo are confirmed cases of swine

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States
text: based on previous CDC guidance related to this outbreak may reopen. By that time at least 726 schools nationwide serving more than 480,000 students had closed for at least some period of time. The CDC amended its advice citing, new information on disease severity and the limiting effectiveness of school closure as a control measure. The new advice given stated, "Decisions about school closure should be at the discretion of local authorities based on local considerations, including public concern and the impact of school absenteeism and staffing shortages." The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized emergency use of medicines and

title: Ebola virus cases in the United States
text: on a previous flight. Another school in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District was disinfected overnight due to similar concerns but remained open. In both cases, affected staff were sent home until cleared by health officials. School officials said that they had been assured by city health officials that there was no risk and that the disinfection was "strictly precautionary". Three schools in the Belton Independent School District in Belton, Texas, were also closed. Infectious disease experts considered these closures to be an overreaction and were concerned that it would frighten the public into believing that Ebola is a greater danger

title: Dougherty Valley High School
text: million yearly. During the 2009 flu pandemic in the United States, one tenth grade student at Dougherty was known to have been infected with the Influenza A/H1N1 virus; however, closure of the school did not occur, as it was found to be unnecessary and inconvenient. According to Principal Hibbard, "We just have to make sure we educate parents", and the school administration reacted to the outbreak by sending out an email to parents with advice from the Center for Disease Control. In the summer of 2011, SunPower began construction and installation of solar panels in the school parking lot. The

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States by state
text: first confirmed swine flu case April 30, in a child in Plano; the student attended Wilson Middle School in the Plano Independent School District, and the district decided to close the Collin County school until May 11. Navo Middle School and Lee Elementary School, of Denton Independent School District were also closed after three students at both schools respectively were diagnosed with type A influenza. As of May 2, the rest of Denton ISD officially closed for the following week, but as of May 5, all schools are officially reopening on May 7. The Superintendent of Keller Independent School District

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States by state
text: refused to close despite protests from parents, teachers and students alike. On October 9, 32% of all students were absent out of over 1,600. The school has continued to stay open despite advisement by the Johnson County Health Department even as more and more of the student population falls ill. There are serious concerns of students passing along the virus to the community, creating a large local outbreak. As of October 15 the school is still open. Health officials in Kansas announced April 25 that two new cases of swine flu had been confirmed in Dickinson County, after both were

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: said virus. The Evangelista Medical Hospital in San Pedro, Laguna, the facility where the patient was first admitted, was temporarily closed by DOH for fourteen days. On 17 February 2015, all those who had exposure or had contact with the said nurse were tested negative of the said virus. On 6 March 2015, The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed three Filipino female healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia who were infected with MERS-CoV. On 6 July 2015, DOH confirmed the second detected case of MERS-CoV in the country. The patient who had contracted the virus was from the Middle East and

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States
text: closed in many states in response to local flu outbreaks. By April 30, 2009, 300 U.S. schools and school districts had announced closures in response to the outbreak, giving 169,000 students time off. On May 4, 2009, about 533 schools in 24 states in the U.S. were closed, affecting about 330,000 students. On September 25, 2009, 42 schools were closed in eight states as the second wave of the pandemic began. On May 5, Kathleen Sebelius stated in a CDC news conference that school closures for single confirmed cases of H1N1 influenza were unnecessary, but that parents keep their child

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States by state
text: until May 8. The district was the biggest in the nation to close resulting in 80,000 students out of school and 11,000 staff members out of their jobs for that time. During the next week 6 school districts in Dallas-Fort Worth shut down. Including Cleburne, Lewisville, Decatur, Denton, Fort Worth, and Ponder. Other schools in Plano, Dallas, and Richardson were also closed, but did not result in a district wide shut down. Other smaller districts also shut down. Also that day, a probable case caused the closure of Lucy Read Pre-Kindergarten Demonstration School in north Austin. Denton County reported its

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States by state
text: influenza. As many as 73 students are exhibiting flu-like symptoms at The Academy and are assumed to have the virus. All are being isolated. The Academy is set to stay open. On May 3, 2009, parent of students attending King Middle School in Berkeley were notified that their school would be closed down due to a swine flu outbreak involving students at the school. Days later, other schools were closed down because of students or staff exhibiting flu-like symptoms; for example, Sunnyside Elementary School and Woodville Elementary School, both in Tulare County. On June 1, 2009, the first two deaths

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States by state
text: High School for the following week. Following the discovery of more possible swine flu illnesses, the DSHS ordered that all schools and district facilities in the Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District be closed for the week. On April 27, a 7-year-old, a 24-year-old, and a 3-month-old in Dallas County were confirmed to have swine flu. All recovering and were not hospitalized. That same day, the Richardson Independent School District in the northern Dallas suburb of Richardson shut down Canyon Creek Elementary School due to a confirmed and two suspected cases of swine flu. All schools in New Braunfels—private schools and

title: Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District
text: its recommendation that schools close when a case of H1N1 had been detected in the schools. School officials scrambled to put together a way for school to reopen before the original date of May 11. Officials of all Guadalupe county schools decided on an opening date of Thursday, May 7, 2009. Because statewide TAKS testing was scheduled to take place during the initial week of the closure, SCUCISD got permission from the Texas Education Agency to administer TAKS tests during the week of May 11–15, 2009. Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District (SCUC ISD) is a

title: West African Ebola virus epidemic
text: several months. During the period of closure UNICEF and its partners established strict hygiene protocols to be used when the schools were reopened in January 2015. They met with thousands of teachers and administrators to work out hygiene guidelines. Their efforts included installing hand-washing stations and distributing millions of bars of soap and chlorine and plans for taking the temperature of children and staff at the school gate. Their efforts were complicated by the fact that less than 50% of the schools in these three countries had access to running water. In August 2015, UNICEF released a report that stated,

title: Health in the United States
text: decided that a school could deny admission to children who failed to provide a certification of vaccination for the protection of the public health. In 1987, a measles epidemic occurred in Maricopa County, Arizona and another court case, "Maricopa County Health Department vs. Harmon", examined the arguments of an individual's right to education over the states need to protect against the spread of disease. The court decided that it is prudent to take action to combat the spread of disease by denying un-vaccinated children a place in school until the risk for the spread of measles had passed. Schools in

title: Dual-use technology
text: the United States. Universities sometimes flout regulations, complacent as to the dangers in doing so. Though the majority of breaches are benign, the hybridization of hepatitis C and dengue-fever viruses at Imperial College London in 1997 resulted in a fine when health and safety rules were not observed. A research program at Texas A&M University was shut down when "Brucella" and "Coxiella" infections were not reported. That the July 2007 terrorist attacks in central London and at Glasgow airport may have involved National Health Service medical professionals was a recent wake-up call that screening people with access to pathogens may

title: Betty Bumpers
text: and enlisted the assistance of First Lady Rosalynn Carter. After finding only a small number of states required children to be immunized before entering school, the two women joined forces and undertook a campaign to convince every state to adopt this requirement. After just two years of advocacy work focused on individual state governments, they achieved their goal of having all 50 U.S. states require immunization for school entry. A measles epidemic in 1989-1991 that killed more than two hundred children led to a new collaboration between Bumpers and Carter. Concerned that preschool children were vulnerable to preventable illnesses because

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the Philippines by region
text: school was closed for ten days starting June 4. The university then became the first school in the Philippines to shut down classes due to H1N1 infection. De La Salle then recorded the highest number of flu cases in Metro Manila schools. On June 4, 2009, the confirmed cases of A(H1N1) virus rose to 29, after another De La Salle-Manila student and a staff of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) were confirmed that they were infected with the virus. ADB office in Makati City was then subjected for closure and quarantine was made to infected or possible contacted people. On

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States
text: been fully briefed." President Barack Obama stated that "We are closely monitoring the emerging cases of swine flu". He also noted, "This is obviously a cause for concern ... but it is not a cause for alarm". President Obama suggested that U.S. schools should consider shutting down, as a future possibility, if their students were to become infected. White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs said the effort to get a team in place to respond to the health scare has not been hindered by the lack of a secretary of Health and Human Services or appointees in any of the

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States by state
text: to lessen the flu's threat. On April 28, Gov. Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency which allows the state to deploy additional resources to the Department of Public Health and more quickly and easily purchase equipment and materials. St. Mels Catholic School in Fair Oaks was closed after Sacramento County Health Department notified the school that a 7th grade student who reportedly recently returned from a family vacation in Mexico tested positive for an unidentified strain of influenza virus A. On April 27, CDC officials confirmed that the student tested positive for swine flu. In Marin County, a grandmother and

title: Social distancing
text: 1957-58 outbreak, and up to 50% in controlling influenza in the US, 2004-2008. Similarly, mandatory school closures and other social distancing measures were associated with a 29% to 37% reduction in influenza transmission rates during the 2009 flu epidemic in Mexico. Modeling and simulation studies based on US data suggest that if 10% of affected workplaces are closed, the overall infection transmission rate is around 11.9% and the epidemic peak time is slightly delayed. In contrast, if 33% of affected workplaces are closed, the attack rate decreases to 4.9%, and the peak time is delayed by 1 week. During the