Flu turning out to be not so bad

SPRINGFIELD - The Illinois Department of Public Health director told state lawmakers Tuesday that it's important to remain vigilant in the face of the H1N1 flu virus, but fears of a pandemic flu are overblown.

"We have to keep these things in perspective, look at them rationally, know what the threat is and deal with it in a rational way. We know right now that this virus is acting very similarly to the regular seasonal flu," said Dr. Damon T. Arnold, head of the state public health agency.

Illinois has seen 82 people infected with the virus, mostly adults living in Chicago and the suburbs. One person was hospitalized but has recovered and been released.

"At this juncture, this virus seems to be in a mild course," Arnold said. "We're recommending now that for routine cases you take care of yourself at home as you would for seasonal flu."

Arnold refused to criticize Illinois schools that shut down when a student contracted H1N1, saying that too much about the virus was still unknown last week. Now that it appears H1N1 is similar to seasonal flu, other factors should be considered in deciding whether to shut down schools.

"It has secondary and tertiary effects any time you put an intervention in place. So if I close a school, a parent has to stay home, which means they don't earn money. That has a direct economic impact on a family," Arnold said. "We want to make sure the interventions are appropriately scaled against the social consequences of doing the mitigation strategies."

Members of an Illinois House health care committee praised Arnold and the department for its speed conducting H1N1 tests and rapid deployment of medicine and supplies to hospitals and clinics.

"I understand that in the beginning we didn't know if this was going to be a deadly thing or a mild thing, so it was appropriate to react with a lot of caution because we wouldn't want to have to look back and say, 'Gee we wish we had been more aggressive,'" said state Rep. Greg Harris, a Democrat from Chicago.

"I think we reacted very appropriately," Harris said.