A group of students from Queens might be the reason that the Swine flu. Image is from flickr. According to an article from the nytimes says that Esti Lamonaca and her friends are under a national spotlight as the health officials try to figure out whether this group of teenagers are the reason there is a swine flu outbreak in New York. This group of students spent five months planning a trip to Mexico to celebrate their senior year of high school. They choose the Oasis Cancun hotel, and it was a dream vacation for the students. Esti Lamonaca said the trip was “awesome”.
This new flu strain is responsible for killing 149 people and sickened more than 1,600 in Mexico. This could easily become a global pandemic, because of all the traveling people do. About 45 cases have been confirmed in the United States and 28 of them were from students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens, where Ms. Lamonaca and 7 of the 11 friends she vacationed with are students.
Health officials caution that they are not sure yet whether the vacationers, who came back to school on April 20 after the six-day trip, caused the outbreak. There was a questionnaire given to students at St. Francis asked about travel to Mexico, but also to California and Texas. Ms. Lamonaca said it was not fair to blame her and her friends for the outbreak and says “No one can prove it”. Ms. Lamonaca said she began to feel sick last week, with a sore throat, aching back and a cough, and is now feeling better. However the article states that she had not been tested for the swine flu. So how can we blame someone for this epidemic if they haven’t even been tested for it to confirm they brought it hear?
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