WESTBROOK, Maine — Even if a snowstorm hadn’t hit Maine, one nursery school in Westbrook would have been closed Wednesday because of a flu outbreak, Portland ABC affiliate WMTW reported.
Pride’s Corner Nursery School Director Deborah Hirsten told the television station that five of the school’s 51 students and three of its teachers have called out sick because of the flu recently.
Hirsten told WMTW the virus hit the school community “like a Mack truck,” and that she herself experienced feverish symptoms for several days.
Despite a slow start of the 2013-2014 flu season, cases of the virus are designated as widespread in Maine, according to federal agencies, with Penobscot County having been hardest hit thus far with 274 cases this winter. In Cumberland County, where Westbrook is located, 28 new cases have been reported in the last week, bringing the county’s total to 144 cases this season.
