Photo/Illutration A boy is tested for influenza at a pediatric clinic in Tokyo on Nov. 27. (Midori Iki)

Amid a wave of class closures due to a surge in influenza cases, many parents are facing anxious times with the long winter still ahead and uncertainty when the next cancellations will come.

A 42-year-old working mother of two elementary school children in Yokohama said, “I have never seen so many classes shut down and so early in the season.”

In mid-November, her older daughter’s fifth-grade class was canceled for four days.

The girl was healthy, but she could not attend her after-school child care program because her class was shut down.

While her husband was required to go into the office, the closures coincided with days when the woman had planned to work from home or take paid leave.

“I was able to get through it this time around because my child is in an upper grade,” the woman said. “It might have been much harder if she had been younger.”

According to the health ministry, the number of influenza patients reported by sentinel medical institutions nationwide averaged 51.12 per facility during the week through Nov. 23, marking the 14th consecutive weekly increase.

During the same week, classes were canceled at 6,323 facilities, which range from day care centers and kindergartens to elementary and junior and senior high schools, about 24 times more than the same period the previous year.

The Yokohama woman said her daughter studied independently on a tablet at home and read books while her class was suspended. 

A notice from the school advised that children in classes under suspension should also refrain from attending cram schools and extracurricular lessons.

The woman, whose younger daughter is in the second grade, also expressed frustration over the lack of clear criteria for class closures.

A second-grade class, which had six pupils absent, was suspended the following week, forcing a field trip to be postponed.

However, her second daughter’s class was not canceled even though nine pupils were absent.

Since the school has not explained specific standards, closures are unpredictable.

Typically, influenza starts to spread in earnest from December.

“I wonder how many more of these closures we will have to go through,” the woman said.

Class closures and entire grade shutdowns are preventive measures against infectious diseases based on the School Health and Safety Law. Decisions are generally made by the principal.

However, the law does not provide explicit criteria for those suspensions at school.

As a result, some municipalities have established their own guidelines, such as the percentage of students absent due to influenza within a single class.

For example, the Tokyo metropolitan government uses the absentee rate of about 20 percent, while Osaka Prefecture sets the threshold at 15 percent or more.

According to influenza expert Reiko Saito, a professor of public health at Niigata University, a highly contagious strain known as subclade K is spreading this year, with higher incidence rates among those under 18.

“If children infected at school transmit the virus to parents and other family members, it could spread throughout the community in no time,” Saito said. “Closing classes early in an outbreak is highly effective and necessary to prevent a large epidemic.”

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