THROUGHOUT the country, school administrators find themselves in a bind. As the A(H1N1) virus continues to spread, they are torn between the devil of suspending classes and the deep blue sea of containing the pandemic.

What makes their situation even more unhappy is an unfortunate but inescapable conclusion: Calling off classes has failed to stop the spread of swine flu. Given widespread public alarm about the virus, suspending classes every time a student or a teacher is positively diagnosed looks more and more like a knee-jerk, instead of a well-thought-out, reaction.

“It’s useless. This is just like sore eyes or cough,” Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said the other day. He has readied new guidelines, “which shifts the focus from containment to mitigation, because even if you suspend classes, would that stop the spread of the virus?”

We can understand where Lapus is coming from. At the rate schools are calling off classes, there may be nothing left of the first academic semester before the virus can be sufficiently contained. (Sen. Richard Gordon has a good suggestion: Affected schools should enforce “home lessons”—to minimize the impact of the disruption in the academic schedule. Lapus also recommended using the time in between semesters for make-up classes.)

A draft of the Department of Education order makes the argument: “There is no value in suspending classes for the same group of students or school staff in case another confirmed case is detected in the group.” Why is this so? “The likelihood that transmission has occurred prior to the occurrence of symptoms and laboratory testing is high. Thus, the emphasis on infection management should be shifted to individual patient care.”

Lapus summed it up, thus: “So in the first instance [of a confirmed infection], you suspend. But on the second instance, don’t.”

This, unfortunately, will be easier said than carried out—even though most school administrators will favor the new guidelines. The reason is the mild panic that still overtakes the ordinary citizen—and thus the parent, the security guard, the librarian, the school bus driver, the canteen operator, and so on—every time a new case is announced. The level of public awareness about the virus is still stuck at the uncertainty stage: despite the worse effects of the recurring dengue season, the swine flu is still considered by most as more dangerous, precisely because it is new, unfamiliar, obscure.

At the same time, no school administrator wants to be caught in a position where a student’s death can be blamed on the decision not to suspend classes in the entire school.

Can’t the Philippines adopt the same extreme measure as Mexico, and essentially shut down the country for a couple of weeks to allow the strongest containment measures to take effect? This has the benefit of communicating political will and generating hope among the public; drastic needs, people will say, require drastic measures.

But Mexico remains the second-worst country in number of cases, and the worst in number of deaths.

Since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, on June 11, until June 24, the date of the latest WHO update, the Philippines added 368 new cases, and one death. Mexico, however, after a fortunate week in which no additional cases were reported, added 1,606 cases and recorded seven new deaths between June 19 and June 24.

Perhaps the best solution to the problem school administrators face may be to take a leaf from their business, and invest in learning. There is a need for a deeper level of awareness about the virus, a higher level of precision about the “low-level” nature (Lapus’ description) of the problem we face. The government, business enterprises, professional associations, media organizations and, yes, educational institutions need to make the strange familiar.

Schools can do this by establishing open communications with parents and other school stakeholders, promoting greater virus “literacy,” painstakingly preparing contingency plans with the participation of parents and teachers and conducting continuing educational sessions (the bigger schools can do it virtually, through online discussion groups). The only thing to fear is fear of the unknown.