Prince George, B.C. – With  five cases of H1N1 now confirmed in the Northern Health region, Chief Medical Health officer Dr. David Bowering says there is some good news,    “So far, much to our relief, this virus is behaving much like a seasonal flu.”

Dr. Bowering says although officials have said the cases so far have been mild , it would be more accurate to refer to it as “typical”.

There are now five confirmed cases of H1N1,  in Northern Health  “Last week we were advised of a high rate of absenteeism at Decker Lake Elementary School, and we were hearing about as many as 20 students, that's about about 19 or 20% rate of absenteeism, so we asked public health nurses to take samples”. The school was closed early Friday, and the weekend lab results confirmed 3 samples were positive. He says this case is the largest cluster of the flu and he can say with a certain amount of confidence, that all the children absent with flu like symptoms,  are suffering from the H1N1 virus. 

Ray Lemoigne, Superintendant of School District 91 says  Decker lake elementary will remain closed this week, and   the situation will be reviewed at the end of the week. 

“This virus has been behaving  with typical  symptoms, many of the children have recovered. What we are advising people to do is to stay home, they should not go to school and they should not go to work.”   Dr. Bowering says the fourth case is that of a 17 year old, but his residence is not “clear”.

Dr. Bowering says since swabs are not being taken on everyone returning from Mexico, there is no way to know just how many people may have brought this home.

Dr. Bowering says while there has been a great deal of  interest both from media and the scientific world, he thinks this flu is acting more and more like a season flu. He says there is no need to  treat this like SARS or even a pandemic at this point.  Rather  he advised people to self isolate if they have flu like symptoms.  He says  people stay home for 7 days or until they stop coughing, which ever is longer.