Swine flu sweeps through Washington region

In the vast majority of cases, that’s proved the best medicine. But on Wednesday, Maryland reported that the H1N1 virus caused the deaths of two residents who showed no underlying health conditions. One first-grader in Virginia with no underlying medical conditions died last week, Virginia health officials said.

In Fairfax County Public Schools, the number of students missing school has doubled from last year to between 6 and 7 percent, spokeswoman Lori Knickerbocker said.

The schools don’t track swine flu specifically, Knickerbocker said, but they suspect flu symptoms are causing the spike.

In Arlington County, absentees have neared 8 percent of all students, spokeswoman Linda Erdos said. But as in surrounding districts, the majority of school activities have continued. School and county health officials attribute the relative normalcy of the school calendar to parents taking flu precautions more seriously than in swine-free years.

Across the Potomac in Montgomery County, more than 15 percent of the 2,000 students at Churchill High School stayed home earlier this month, a rate that Parent-Teacher Association President Karen Leszczynski called “outlandish.” The rate has since returned to its normal 3.5 percent, county officials said.

And on the ice, Washington Capitals forward Quintin Laing is resting up as the team announced Wednesday he has fallen to the swine flu. He was being kept away from other players, team officials said, and likely would miss at least the next two games.

Hospitals and clinics have seen spikes of sick patients as well, but that trend has not spread to intensive care units, a sign that most flu patients are recovering normally.

“There’s been a big jump in people coming in with flulike symptoms,” said Stephanie Hertzog, spokeswoman for D.C.’s Providence Hospital. “But their conditions haven’t been serious enough to need ICU or critical care.”

Reports from Inova Health System in Virginia and Suburban Hospital in Maryland echoed Hertzog’s analysis.

“The virus is here, and the treatment, essentially, is fluids, rest, stay at home, Tylenol for a fever, and if the fever doesn’t go down, or if you’re short of breath, or if the cough doesn’t improve or there’s blood in it, then of course go to the nearest emergency room,” D.C. physician Horacio Schapiro said.

And get the vaccine when it becomes available, said the University of Maryland’s Steven Salzberg.

“The issue that just hasn’t sunk in is that the vaccine is our best defense and it is perfectly safe, and some people just don’t seem to believe that,” said Salzberg, director of the university’s Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. “It can’t hurt to say that again and again.”

While doses of the vaccine trickle in, the non-immune can take solace in the fact that the virus likely won’t grow heartier or more vicious in coming months.

“Normally, infectious viruses get gradually less virulent or just stay the same,” Salzberg said. “It always needs to be a concern, but there’s no particular reason why this strain would be different.”

Vaccination delays have resulted from the virus growing more slowly in labs than doctors originally expected, according to federal health officials.

But state officials promise the goods are on the way. Maryland expects 1 million doses by mid- to late November. Virginia officials said half a million doses were allocated to the state Wednesday.

“We don’t have as much as we would’ve liked,” said Dr. Mark Levine, Virginia’s deputy commissioner for emergency preparedness. “The good news is [that] every day that’s changing.”

Examiner reporter Benjamin Giles contributed to this story.

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