Newscoma

On Friday, as I was painfully and tediously trying to figure out how to go home while sitting in my office as I was somewhat bored of life in general and tired from a long workweek as well, I got a phone call from a lady who works for our local school board. I’ve known her for years and she and I have always gotten along extremely well. She’s also a former journalist and although she works for the “man” now as a grantwriter and spokesperson, she’s funny and I dig her.

There was an edge in her voice.

“‘Coma, we have a bit of a problem,” she said. I looked lovingly at the clock, thinking to myself I had about an hour to get out of the office and I really wanted to, you know, do this crazy thing called go-the-hell-home-right-this-very-instant. I did not want a problem. Problems weren’t on my Friday list of “Things To Do”, but, my buddy, didn’t sound so good so I asked what was up.

“Well, there is a confirmed case of a staph infection at Dresden.” she said. “We are contacting all the parents. We also have another case but we aren’t sure yet. We haven’t gotten the results back on that.”

What do you say to that? My first initial response was, “Oh hell to the no.” Instead, we talked about what was going on, how they were going to contact the families and what was going to be done in the coming days. ‘Cause, that’s what’s you do.

Anyway, over the course of the weekend, and being that Homer the sis is the PTO president for said school, the phone rang off our hips. (It no longer rings off the wall as we are a cell phone kind of people.) By Monday morning, it had been confirmed that the other child also was diagnosed with staph.

Both kids, one in elementary school, the other in middle school, were diagnosed with MRSA.

The school was disinfected, buses were cleaned. Now, in Obion County, the schools will be shut down today and tomorrow to also disinfect. According to our sister paper, there have been some strains of MRSA found in the schools there as well.

Obion County Director of Schools David Huss told The Messenger at mid-day Monday that school officials have had reports of staph infection in some of the schools and have received some confirmed reports of a strand of MRSA — Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a type of bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics — in some schools, but not in all of them.
“Some haven’t had any,” he said.
As a precautionary measure, all of the county schools will be closed for the next two days so they can be disinfected “from top to bottom” to ensure the situation doesn’t escalate to a crisis situation, according to Huss.
The closing of the schools includes all after-school activities, practices, athletic activities and other events that would involve use of the school buildings.
“When after-school care is through today, all activities are canceled from then on until Thursday morning — no ball games tonight, no practices in Obion County schools until Thursday morning,” Huss said.

Yeah, We’ve been a bit busy.

I won’t say that people have been panicked but there is a high level of concern.

One good thing I’ve seen is that in our county at least, the school system has been very proactive. I’m pleased with that. On the other hand, when you read about MRSA being called the superbug, you get a bit weirded out and I’ve been trying to explain to folks about this although me explaining MRSA is like a goat reading a book; it’s just damned hard to do. Hell, it’s not Captain Trips from “The Stand” by any means, but still, very disconcerting.

So, that’s what’s going on in my neck of the world. The governor will be here today. Not about this but about rural economic development (can you chant with me, ABOUT TIME!) All together now.

I think I liked being bored better.