Minnesota Gov. Nixes Speech

Minnesota Governor Tim J. Pawlenty cancelled plans to give a speech at the Harvard Kennedy School yesterday evening after learning of his state’s first probable case of swine flu.

He was scheduled to give a presentation titled “The Need to Transform America’s Education, Health Care, and Energy Systems,” but instead chose to remain in his home state to respond to the development.

“This is a situation that can become more serious,” he said in a press conference yesterday. “It is a sign for concern. It is not a sign for panic.”

Minnesota’s Department of Health has labeled the case “probable” because lab testing has confirmed the virus to be type A influenza—a category which includes the swine flu—though it will take one or two more days before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can identify the specific strain of virus.

Pawlenty only identified the patient as a woman affiliated with schools in Cold Spring, in central Minnesota. In response to her probable swine flu, Rocori Middle School and St. Boniface School in Cold Spring were voluntarily closed today.

Health Commissioner Sanne Magnan, also present at the press conference yesterday, said the woman is recovering and did not have to be hospitalized. According to Magnan, health officials “believe the person had contact with someone who traveled to Mexico.”

In Mexico, the country of origin for the current spread of swine flu, 160 people have died of complications from the disease. The first U.S. death from the outbreak occurred in Texas on Monday night when an infant from Mexico City travelling to the U.S. with family died.

In response to the spread of the virus, the World Health Organization declared a Phase 5 outbreak, the second-highest on its threat scale.

At Harvard, Provost Steven E. Hyman and the Director of Harvard University Health Services David S. Rosenthal ’59 sent out a community advisory yesterday, informing students via e-mail that there were two confirmed cases of swine flu in Lowell, Mass.

In the e-mail they urged anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms to seek immediate medical attention and listed resources for Harvard students to learn more about the disease and its spread.