Health

ORONO, Minn. (WCCO) ― Five schools in the Twin Cities will be closed on Monday because of probable cases of the H1N1 novel swine flu virus.

All Orono schools will be closed and activities will be canceled for Monday. The Emerson Spanish Immersion School in Minneapolis will also be closed on Monday because of a separate probable case of the flu.

Orono Superintendent Karen Orcutt was notified by the Minnesota Department of Health and the Commissioner of Education about the possibility on Saturday.

"We are just simply erring on the side of caution," Orcutt said Sunday. "We believe that we will have more information in the next 24 hours."

All of Orono's four schools, which include two elementary schools, a middle school and a high school, are all on one campus, so the entire campus is being closed. The person with the probable case of the flu is associated with Orono High School. Officials did not specify whether that person was an adult or a student.

Custodians will spend Monday disinfecting the schools.

Some students are hoping school won't be canceled all week, since the prom is scheduled to be held on Friday.

"We have prom on Friday, so just hopefully it doesn't mess up those plans or anything like that," senior Brent Schultz said. "Hopefully everyone's OK. That's the main thing."

"If that is canceled, everyone's tux rentals will be for one day, so we'd have to re-rent tuxes and move it, but I don't know how we would be able to rent Carlson Towers again," said senior Kyle Brandt.

The Orono school district serves the western Minneapolis suburbs of Independence, Long Lake, Maple Plain, Medina, Minnetonka Beach and Orono. There are about 2,600 students in the district, and all the schools are on one campus.

The Emerson Spanish Immersion School was supposed to be closed Monday for a staff-development day. School officials said the school will be closed all week because of safety concerns. Staff spent all day contacting students.

"We have been preparing for a pandemic or such incidents for years," said Stan Alleyne with the Minneapolis Public Schools. "So it's good to see that all your hard work comes into play and you can handle the situation."

Health Department officials said the schools will stay closed until confirmation testing by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is complete or until additional guidance is available.

So far, there has been only one confirmed case of the virus in Minnesota, in Cold Spring, Minn. Officials closed ROCORI Middle School and neighboring St. Boniface School there all week.

Late Friday, the Minnesota Department of Health announced eight more probable cases Friday and said samples had been sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for confirmation. On Sunday, MDH announced that two of those eight cases came back negative for H1N1 and are cases of the seasonal flu. Those people were from Dakota and Polk counties.

Testing on the other six cases from the CDC is still pending. Three cases are pending from Hennepin County and one each in Isanti, Wright and Scott counties. None of the people being tested have required hospitalization and are expected to make full recoveries.

The state's health lab hasn't been able to make the final determination that a sample is Type A H1N1, but the CDC is distributing tests to allow public health labs nationwide to do that. The tests are expected in Minnesota within days.

The MDH said it has tested 420 people as of noon on Sunday for the H1N1 virus. About 20 more were awaiting testing.

On Sunday, health officials said there were 245 confirmed cases of swine flu in the United States.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)