WASHINGTON - Absence rates have doubled at many D.C.-area schools as swine flu and flu-like illness.

Students at Osbourn Park headed to classes before daylight Friday morning, knowing a lot of their friends wouldn't be in class.

"There's like half of the kids missing in almost all my classes," said Tessa Horner.

Osbourn Park is one of the harder hit schools in region. Absence rates reached 19 percent, nearly one-fifth students staying home. And their classmates here don't envy them at all.

Horner described her classmates as suffering from "vomiting, and really bad fever and earaches."

Osbourn Park is not alone. The highly contagious virus is making a widespread attack on schools across the region, and it shows in empty seats. The normal absence rate is usually around 3-to-5 percent, but D.C. schools report about 6 percent of their students are out. Fairfax County (web | news) is slightly higher at 6.5 percent. Montgomery, Arlington, and Stafford counties are at 8 percent. Prince William and Loudoun appear hardest hit with 9 percent of their students out sick.

At Osbourn Park, some parents are keeping their students home as a precaution -- but not Will Horner.

"I look at it as a normal flu and flu is just one of the things we have to deal with as a parent," he said.

To add insult to injury in Manassas, getting a swine flu vaccine has been especially difficult. Two clinics at the Manassas Mall were canceled this week. One scheduled for Saturday is still up in the air.

Parent Theresa Brown says "trying to get the vaccine around here is like a miracle."

Many parents say they are concerned when the vaccines do arrive it will be too late.

The U.S. Education Department reported Thursday that 245 schools were closed in 14 states, including in Virginia's Amelia County. That was down from a recent high on Oct. 23 of 351 closures in 19 states, affecting 126,000 students.

The only Washington area school closure related to swine flu this fall was at St. Vincent Pallotti High School in Laurel. The Catholic school shut down for one day this month after about a quarter of its students fell sick. 
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Information from: Washington Post

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