Hands-Off Plan: School Bans Touching To Fight H1N1

[katty]

more: http://wcbstv.com/health/h1n1.swine.flu.2.1155084.html

Aug 31, 2009 5:53 pm US/Eastern Hands-Off Plan: School Bans Touching To Fight H1N1
Glen Cove District Students Urged To Have No Skin-On-Skin Contact With Swine Flu Outbreak Looming
Parents Told To Provide Kids With Tissues, Hand Sanitizer, Ibuprofen Reporting
Jennifer McLogan NEW YORK (CBS) (8/24/2009)

As students across America prepare to head back to school, officials and parents are bracing for a spike in swine flu cases. With the possibility that nearly 2 million people will be hospitalized, and 90,000 people across the county could die, one Long Island school district is taking no chances and has set into place a new "hands-off" approach to fighting the swine flu.

Chest bumps. High fives. Hugs and handshakes. Glen Cove Middle School students Ali Slaughter and Hannah Seltzer say that's what friends do on the first day of school. But when students in the Nassau community return to school next week, the superintendent will be urging abstinence. Everyone from the tiniest tots to the biggest high school football players will be asked to limit skin-on-skin contact in an attempt to prevent the spread of swine flu when it re-emerges this fall.

"It will because you really like your friends and you didn't get to see them," Seltzer tells CBS 2.