Like the rest of the state and nation, Albany and Clinton County is fully gripped in this season’s battle against the influenza virus, which has been one of the worst seasons in decades.

The battle against the illness hit the Clinton County school system particularly hard last week, and in an effort to combat the increasing number of students and faculty members who were absent due to the illness, school officials took the action that is often considered to be the “last straw” by canceling classes and keeping the students at home.

Normally, Clinton County schools see an attendance rate by students that has about 93 percent of its enrollment in class every day.

Last week, those numbers continued to drop to levels that prompted the announcement that classes would be cancelled on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

Dr. Julie York, Director of Pupil Personnel for the Clinton County Schools, told the Clinton County News on Monday morning that the decision to keep students at home wasn’t an easy one for officials, but attendance numbers had reached low enough levels that there wasn’t better options available.

“On a normal day, we try to have at least an attendance of 93 percent across the system,” York said in a telephone interview Monday. “On Thursday, we were at 88 percent across the system, and by the end of the day on Friday, we had dropped to 82 percent.”

York added that the school system wasn’t simply stopping at keeping the students away from the schools, but were also using the down time to try and completely clean and disinfect all of the school facilities.

“We’re using this time (Monday and Tuesday) to go into the schools and clean and sanitize everything,” York said. “We’re cleaning the classrooms, hallways, locker rooms – everything from top to bottom.”

In addition, York said that plans were to bring the students back into schools on Wednesday of this week and again check attendance numbers to see if the measures had helped the situation significantly, as was hoped.

She said that by keeping the students and staff away from each other through the weekend as well as the two additional days earlier this week, it was hoped that the flu attack might run its course.

“We’re trying to be as pro-active as possible with this situation and we’re trying to do everything we can to battle it,” York continued.

She added that in addition to this week’s actions, additional steps would be taken this weekend as well to once again make every attempt to rid the facilities of the flu virus.

“We’ll come back to school on Wednesday and look at the (attendance) numbers for a few days, then we have another long weekend off with President’s Day next Monday,” York said. “We plan to go back into the schools again next weekend and clean everything again to try and beat this thing.”

York also said that plans for most extracurricular activities had been halted as well during the period late last week and early this week.

For instance, at least eight members of the boys’ basketball team and several members of the girls’ basketball team had been diagnosed as having “type B” influenza as last week came to a close.

Four separate nights of planned varsity basketball games late last week and early this week were canceled from the schedule.

Those cancellations leave only Thursday night’s double-header games with Clinton County hosting Barren County remaining on the regular season schedule.

Following Thursday night’s games, it is hoped that the teams will be healthy enough to compete in next week’s 16th District Tournament that will be hosted at Clinton County High School Monday through Friday.

This flu season has been one of the most devastating and most deadly seasons in decades.

Last week, the the state Department for Public Health identified 100 deaths from the influenza epidemic in Kentucky, including at least four children, it announced Friday.

“This season’s H3N2 strain of the flu virus can be extremely serious, even deadly, not just for those in higher risk categories but to generally healthy Kentuckians as well,” the department said in a news release.

The death rate is well ahead of last year’s total of 76, with at least three months left in the current flu season.

Schools underwent a complete scrubbing this week in an effort to rid the buildings of the flu virus. In the above photo, contributed by Principal Tim Armstrong, Albany Elementary staff members Kay Rogers and Joanne Guthrie disinfect walls, while at right, Gayle Cooksey scrubs hallway floors.