 U.S. government officials have been especially concerned about schools because the H1N1 flu virus appears to disproportionately affect young and school-age people, between six months and 24 years of age. The H1N1 outbreak led to numerous precautionary school closures in some areas. Rather than closing schools, the CDC recommended that students and school workers with flu symptoms should stay home for either seven days total, or until 24 hours after symptoms subsided, whichever was longer. The CDC also recommended that colleges should consider suspending fall 2009 classes if the virus began to cause severe illness in a significantly larger share of students than the previous spring. They also urged schools to suspend rules, such as penalties for late papers or missed classes or requirements for a doctor's note, to enforce "self-isolation" and prevent students from venturing out while ill; schools were advised to set aside a room for people developing flu-like symptoms while they waited to go home and to have ill students or staff and those caring for them use face masks.
