Illness Hits Breezy Point's Eagle View

While parents wait for the H1N1 vaccine to make its way to the lakes area, an area elementary school has been hard hit by illness. The Pequot Lakes school district reports heavy absenteeism from influenza-like illness. Symptoms include a fever of 100 or more, cough and sore throat.

The district is reporting 21% of the students at Eagle View Elementary in Breezy Point were out with illness Wednesday, which is a slight improvement over the day before. While illness is also being reported in both the Pequot Lakes middle school and high school, it is not nearly as high, 6 % in the middle school and 2% in the high school.

The incidence seems to be representative of national trends in which the younger students have been hit the hardest.

School officials are asking parents to keep the ill students home for at least 24 hours after the fever has broken without the use of medicine. They say it takes 5 to 7 days for the illness to run its course.