Disease outbreak postpones elementary school Sports Day

During September, multiple cases of chicken pox, hand-mouth-foot disease, and one case of scarlet fever in elementary school ultimately led to the postponement of their Sports Day, which was originally scheduled for October 12, the same day as Middle-High School’s Sports Day.

According to Ms. Cuiling Ma, the elementary school nurse, two Chinese track students were diagnosed with chickenpox during the fourth week of September, another had caught scarlet fever, and three other second-grade Chinese track students suffered from the hand-mouth-foot disease. “Every year, the disease statistics database renews its record of each disease, specifically the frequency of its occurrence and the speed at which it spreads. Then, based on the annual data, the center provides advised methods to prevent further infection,” explained Ms. Cuiling Ma. It is said that nowadays, chicken pox specifically, compared to the other diseases, spreads relatively quickly, and this is the disease the school was most concerned with. “Currently, one student with chicken pox is enough to result in not just the quarantine of his or her class and his or her stay at home, but also results in an emergency chicken pox vaccination for the other kids,” stated the nurse. She then added that while a sick kid usually healed after two weeks at home, the class was quarantined for three weeks to ensure the disease did not linger. A quarantined class of students had all their classes and lunch in the same classroom. They were also restricted to the usage of only one bathroom which other students cannot use.

Especially careful to contain the spread of the diseases, the elementary school principal decided to abide by the Center for Disease Control’s rule and postponed Sports Day to Friday, November 2. An email was sent out by the administrators to parents to inform them of the decision and explain that instead of a half day for Sports Day, Friday, October 12 would be a full school day. The delay of such a campus-wide event was necessary since Sports Day would increase the risk of spreading chicken pox by having all students mingle with one another. It would be hard to isolate the affected class and students properly.

The elementary students, of course, harbored sentiments towards this change of events. Quincy Carroll (3E) voiced, “I guess…[I feel] a little bit happy and a little bit sad, because I was hoping for a half day, and then also…I got to have a sleepover. But then it got canceled, so I wasn’t really happy. But then also I did not need to take a shower [so I’m happy about that].” Similarly, Ellington Carroll (1B) feels happy about how the postponement of Sports Day meant not having to shower afterward. Meanwhile, Angela Tang (3E) says, “I hate Sports Day being delayed, cause like my sister Joy Tang (10C) always gets like, half day. They get a half day, and they play. And we, we have to have a whole day of class. Bluh….” While Angela then expressed that chicken pox was “not at all” a good reason to reschedule Sports Day “because it was not in [my] grade,” Quincy and Ellington both agreed that Sports Day should be canceled because “Chicken pox would infect people. People who get infected will infect other people and then infect the whole SMIC.”

Featured Image Chicken Pox Quarantine Courtesy of upmcmyhealthmatters.com

By Gracier Dai