NY Times, Sat., Oct. 5, 1957:
Flu Widens in City;
10% Rate Predicted;
200,000 Pupils Out
By Robert Alden
Asian influenza continued to spread
through the city yesterday.
Commissioner of Hospitals Morris A.
Jacobs re****ted that there were ten times
more respiratory infections than during
the comparable period a year ago.
Attendance in the city's schools fell again.
The Board of Education said that close to
200,000 of the city's 941,000 pupils were
not in their classrooms yesterday. On
Thursday 160,000 pupils were absent.
The attendance estimates were based
on a sampling of the schools by the board.
The sampling showed that in some schools
in the Harlem area--the section hardest hit
by the epidemic--more than 50 per cent
of the pupils were absent. The board
estimated that the overall city absence rate
was 20 per cent.
== 3,000 Teachers Absent ==
About 3,000 teachers out of about 39,000
were not in their classrooms yesterday,
compared with 2,700 absent on Thursday.
The city's acting Health Commissioner,
Dr. Roscoe P. Kandle, said he expected
that the total number of people affected by
the highly infectious disease would run
closer to 800,000 rather than 1,600,000
as predicted in some quarters.
It was estimated Thursday that 200,000
persons in New York had contracted the
respiratory infection, & the total yesterday
was believed to be somewhat higher.
Commissioner Kandle explained that
any attempt to project the ultimate number
of cases would involve conjecture...
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