A Toronto parent group is pressing Toronto's public and Catholic education boards to close schools if there's a pattern of kids getting sick from the H1N1 virus.
The Greater Toronto Catholic Parent Network said parents are anxious in the wake of the death of 13-year-old Evan Frustaglio, who died of the virus Monday.
"Everyone is alarmed," GTCPN chairman Murielle Boudreau said yesterday.
"Is this mutating right now as we're speaking, here in Toronto, and they're not telling us? It's very scary because we've never seen this before," she said.
Boudreau said her main concern is that hand sanitizers in schools are not enough to protect kids from the virus.
"In some schools, there are 600 kids sharing two sinks," Boudreau said. "We had the same problem with SARS, but no one did anything about it. They say they're using sanitizers, but you really have to be on top of this."
But both the Toronto Catholic and public boards say they don't plan on putting any flu clinics in their schools.
"That's a Toronto Public Health decision," said May Moore of the Toronto District School Board. "And really, it's up to parents to make the decision to vaccinate their kids."
Since April, the TDSB has been reinforcing sleeve sneezes, hand-washing protocols and staying home if ill.
"We're reinforcing those messages in our schools and that's not going to change," Moore added.
Toronto Catholic District School Board spokesman Emmy Szekeres Milne said she couldn't provide a definitive answer on whether panicked parents had been calling schools, but "nothing unusual has been reported to us at this point in time."
But sports organizations say parents who have kids on teams are keeping calm.
The Toronto Sports Council and Greater Toronto Hockey League said they'll keep following preparedness practices already in place to fight infection.
"It's a real tragedy to have a young boy suffer the demise he has," said GTHL executive director Scott Oakman.
Dr. Arlene King, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, said parents shouldn't need to pull their kids out of school or extracurricular activities to protect themselves from the virus.
"I think it's important that we keep living our lives. This illness is with us, but it's still the flu," she said. "Keep playing hockey."
JENNY.YUEN@SUNMEDIA.CA
