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Niagara County Public Health officials will continue their extra and early inspections of migrant worker camps along the Lake Ontario shoreline Tuesday, in light of the swine flu outbreaks in Mexico and elsewhere.
Typically, the produce farms in northern Niagara County employ hispanic migrants during the fall harvest season, but county public health director Daniel Stapleton has launched his annual efforts early, in case the swine flu outbreak has brought Mexicans here earlier than usual.
"Whatr we are doing is sending out our sanitarians, who normally inspect migrant housing earlier than usual, to share (prevention) information with farmers and share information with migrant workers who may be there," Stapleton says.
Many of the counties large farms lean almost exclusively on Hispanic migrant labor to pick cherries, apples, and peaches each fall, but seldom are they needed during planting season.
And farmers say most of the workers who come here later, are in the States already, picking citrus in Florida now, instead of living in Mexico City and other highly infected areas.
"We don't have people going back and forth like they used to," says Jim Bittner, of Singer Farms in Appleton. " ...I can honestly say I've never encountered anyone from Mexico City that was looking for work on a farm."
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U.S. cautious, not alarmed, as swine flu sickens 42
(AP) A handful of schools around the country have closed over swine flu fears and some people are wearing masks, but it's mostly business as usual in the U.S., even at border crossings into Mexico.
While Asian countries deployed thermal sensors at airports to screen passengers from North America for signs of fever, there have been no extra screenings at the U.S. border with the country considered ground zero for the outbreak. Swine flu has killed as many as 152 people in Mexico, where schools have been canceled nationwide.
At the main pedestrian border crossing between El Paso and Mexico's Ciudad Juarez, people entering the country who said they felt unwell were questioned about their symptoms, but there were no reports of anyone refused entry.
Jorge Juarez and Miranda Carnero, both 18, crossed the border wearing bright blue masks. "It's just a precaution," said Juarez, who lives in El Paso and drew a smiley face on his mask.
Passengers from a Mexico City flight that arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey said they were surprised customs officials did nothing more than hand them an informational flier.
"Nobody cared when we got off the plane. We were surprised," said Lourdes Pizano, 51, of Montgomery Township, N.J., who was returning from a visit to relatives in Mexico City. "We thought they were going to bring us into a different gate, or segregate us."
"Everyone's afraid. But when we got here, they said, 'Welcome to America. You don't need that,'" said Alejandro Meneses of Fairlawn, N.J., pointing to a paper mask hanging from his neck.
There were 42 confirmed cases of swine flu in the United States, including 28 at a private high school in New York City, 13 in California, six in Texas, two in Kansas and one in Ohio. Only one American case has led to a hospitalization.
President Barack Obama characterized the U.S. cases as a cause for concern but not "a cause for alarm." The federal government said travel warnings for trips to Mexico would remain in place as long as swine flu is detected.
Scattered protective steps were being taken across the U.S. A few schools were closed - in Cibolo and New Braunfels, Texas; Mira Mesa, Calif.; and Columbia, S.C. - and residents of Guadalupe County, outside San Antonio, were asked to avoid public gatherings and stay home if they are ill.
Pharmacies in Manhattan reported that paper face masks were selling by the box. One pharmacy owner said he had to order more from his wholesale supplier for the first time since the SARS epidemic six years ago.
Security guards at all entrances of the University of Chicago Medical Center required anyone walking in to use a liquid disinfectant. At Rush University Medical Center, anyone seeking treatment for fever, runny nose and coughs was being tested for flu with nasal swabs.
Elsewhere, there were signs of growing unease among the public, even in places where there was no immediately known cause for alarm.
Students at a Chicago school were instructed not to shake hands with anyone, and Southern Illinois University urged students to wash their hands frequently and cover their mouths when coughing. There were no known swine flu cases in Illinois.
And in New Mexico, which also had no reported cases, health officials were so besieged by calls from concerned citizens that they set up a swine flu hot line.
In New York, all 28 confirmed cases were traced to private St. Francis Preparatory school in Queens, where pupils began lining up at the nurse's office Thursday complaining of fever, nausea, sore throats and aches. One teacher was infected.
Some of the infected students said they had recently returned from a spring break trip to Mexico. Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said nearly all the infected students were feeling better, and none was worse.
In the subways and on the streets of the nation's largest city, it was all but impossible to find anyone wearing a mask. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said no other clusters of the virus had been detected.
"We have seen the kind of flu that does not seem to grow, and in a few days, the symptoms seem to be going away," he said.
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