Swine flu fears close 2 more schools
Absences high in S. Boston
Two more Boston public schools are being temporarily shuttered because of outbreaks of suspected swine flu.
The John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science in Roxbury and the James Condon Elementary School in South Boston will be closed starting today and resume classes next Wednesday, June 3.
The O'Bryant school has more than 1,200 students in the seventh through 12th grades and yesterday 159 were absent, an unusually high number. Similarly, the Condon school has 700 students in kindergarten through fifth grade and recorded 98 absences - 14 percent of the student body.
Meanwhile, Boston Latin School - which has 2,400 students, more than any other school in the city - was set to welcome students back this morning after more than 250 fell ill with flu-like symptoms last week. It was one of three schools - the others were Umana Middle School Academy in East Boston and Frederick Middle School in Dorchester - closed last week after students began falling sick.
Laboratory testing during the holiday weekend confirmed that 66 more Massachusetts residents have confirmed cases of the disease caused by the H1N1 virus, with seven of them requiring hospitalization.
Since the novel virus arrived in the state a month ago, 350 infections have been confirmed, and 26 patients have been so ill that they had to be hospitalized for at least one night. More than two-thirds of the cases in Massachusetts have been reported from two Boston-area counties, Middlesex and Suffolk.
The number of confirmed cases, specialists said, probably reflects only a small fraction of illnesses caused by the virus. Many other people, doctors said, have probably experienced bouts of sickness caused by the germ but their symptoms were sufficiently mild that they did not seek medical attention and, thus, were not tested.
Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com. 
