I.

The Problem and Its Background

The board of education in Hometown is interested in lessening the annual
impacts of the influenza outbreak in all of its elementary and high school schools. At
present, there are no systematic records of the severity and timing of the flu in a
system-wide basis. Only Maplewood School has available records, recorded by Mrs.
Stewart, their school nurse. Mrs. Stewart only started to keep a record track of
recoveries from the start of September until mid-October. This record is shown in
the table below.
Table 1. Record of Recoveries, Maplewood School
Date

# of
Recoveries

Date

# of
Recoveries

Date

# of
Recoveries

Sept. 4

Sept. 18

74

Oct. 2

Sept. 5

Sept. 19

17

Oct. 3

Sept. 6

Sept. 20

14

Oct. 4

Sept. 7

Sept. 21

11

Oct. 5

Sept. 8

Sept. 22

Oct. 6

Sept.
11

55

Sept. 25

18

Oct. 9

Sept.
12

37

Sept. 26

Oct. 10

Sept.
13

39

Sept. 27

Oct. 11

Sept.
14

38

Sept. 28

Oct. 12

Sept.
15

38

Sept. 29

Oct. 13

Due to this outbreak, the board of education proposed four strategies: 1) Closing
the school before the virus reaches its peak, 2) Providing free vaccinations to
teachers residing in the school district, 3) Provide free vaccinations to children
residing in the school district, 4)Or doing nothing. It is important to note that any of
the said options can be costly in terms of money and the time students will miss in
school. Also, vaccines can have some adverse side effects for some portion of the
population. It is also medically proven that the flu last for 5 days.
II.

Data Analysis
Hometowns board of education should implement a rule to all the schools to
collect data from the beginning of the year until the end of the year. Data that is
reflected on its record book should show the following columns: (1) Date, (2)
Number of Students Who Got Sick This Day, (3) Number of Students Still Sick This

Day, and (4) Number of Recoveries This Day. The date column should show all days
of that given year, including weekends, holidays and non-working days. The
students should be responsible in reporting to their school clinic nurse when exactly
they caught the flu, and when they have recovered. Having a real time record of
these information will give the board of education data in determining both the
severity and timing of the influenza outbreak.

Figure 1. Number of Recoveries per day (Original)

Figure 1 shows the graph of the number of recoveries per day as given by the
records obtained from Mrs. Stewart. As the data given lacks the days for the
weekends (Saturday and Sunday), the researchers filled these days by distributing
the number of recoveries of Mondays to these two days. The reason for this is that
the recorded number of recoveries for Mondays already include those students who
recovered on either Saturday or Sunday, causing the outliers in the graph. The
graph of the adjusted data can be seen on Figure 2. The number of recoveries on
Mondays are distributed to Saturday and Sunday in such a way that it still follows
the trend of the original data. For example, the recorded number of recoveries on
Sept. 11 increased compared to that of Sept. 8 - hinting an increasing trend. Thus,
the number of recoveries on Sept. 9 (Saturday) should be less than that of Sept 10
(Sunday), and the number of recoveries on Sept. 10 (Sunday) should be less than
that of Sept 11 (Monday). Upon adjusting the data by providing values for the
number of recoveries per day, an overshoot and collapse mode of dynamic behavior
was observed. It is seen in Figure 2 that the data points continued to escalate and
increase until it reached its peak close to about 40 recoveries. Upon reaching its
peak number of recoveries in the week of Sept. 11-17, a reverse exponential growth
is seen which is reflected by the downward slope. With this, the dynamic problem
can be stated as: An overshoot and collapse pattern can be observed in the
number of students that contracts the flu from September to October of each year
which can lead to an increasing number of students being absent in school.

Figure 2. Number of Recoveries per day (Adjusted)

The total number of students who were sick with the flu from Aug. 30 to Oct.
13 totaled to 384 students. The number of students who were sick in each day of
the flu epidemic is shown on the table below.
Table 2. Number of Sick Persons During Flu Epidemic

Date

# of Students
Sick On This
Day

Date

# of
Students
Sick On This
Day

Sept. 15

105

Sept. 30

Sept. 1

Sept. 16

86

Oct. 1

Sept. 2

Sept. 17

72

Oct. 2

Sept. 3

10

Sept. 18

59

Oct. 3

Sept. 4

21

Sept. 19

47

Oct. 4

Sept. 5

37

Sept. 20

38

Oct. 5

Sept. 6

64

Sept. 21

31

Oct. 6

Sept. 7

98

Sept. 22

25

Oct. 7

Sept. 8

131

Sept. 23

20

Oct. 8

Sept. 9

158

Sept. 24

17

Oct. 9

Sept. 10

180

Sept. 25

14

Oct. 10

Sept. 11

182

Sept. 26

12

Oct. 11

Sept. 12

168

Sept. 27

10

Oct. 12

Sept. 13

150

Sept. 28

Oct. 13

Sept. 14
129
Sept. 29
*Weekends are highlighted

Date

# of Students
Sick On This
Day

Aug. 30

Upon computing the number of sick students during the flu epidemic, a graph
of it is shown in Figure 3. It is shown that the peak time of sick students present
were from Sept 8 to 13. Looking back at Table 2, it shows that there has been
33.67% increase of sick students from Sept.7-8. This continued to increase during
that weekend of Sept. 9 and 10, as there are higher chances of contaminating each
other in the student's respective households with the flu. Come Monday (Sept. 11)
following that weekend, it is shown in Table 2 that there was a total of 182 students
affected by the flu, and this is also the maximum number of sick students present in
this case.
182 sick students is an alarming number, and it is possible that during the
peak days of the flu, the flu epidemic has already been called to the attention of the
school. It is possible that the students have been carefully oriented about
preventions, medicines and vaccinations for the flu. After Sept.11, the number of
sick students continued to escalate downwards; that come Oct. 9, there were no
more records of sick students admitted to the clinic.

Figure 3. Number of Sick Students per Day

Figure 4 shows the graph of the number of students that contracted the flu
per day (shown in red) and the number of students that recovered per day (shown
in blue). Using the medical fact as a basis, the number of students that contracted
the flu per day was obtained by counting 5 days backwards from the day of each
students recovery; thus explaining why the graph of both are exactly similar the
only difference being the 5-day gap between them. Table 3 shows the data for the
number of students that contracted the flu per day, and from this table we can see
that the first case of flu was contracted on Sept. 1 by one student.

Figure 4. Number of Recoveries per day

Table 3. Number of Students that Contracted the Flu per Day

III.

Date

# of Students
Sick On This
Day

Date

# of
Students
Sick On This
Day

Sept. 15

14

Sept. 30

Sept. 1

Sept. 16

11

Oct. 1

Sept. 2

Sept. 17

Oct. 2

Sept. 3

Sept. 18

Oct. 3

Sept. 4

11

Sept. 19

Oct. 4

Sept. 5

16

Sept. 20

Oct. 5

Sept. 6

28

Sept. 21

Oct. 6

Sept. 7

37

Sept. 22

Oct. 7

Sept. 8

39

Sept. 23

Oct. 8

Sept. 9

38

Sept. 24

Oct. 9

Sept. 10

38

Sept. 25

Oct. 10

Sept. 11

30

Sept. 26

Oct. 11

Sept. 12

23

Sept. 27

Oct. 12

Sept. 13

21

Sept. 28

Oct. 13

Sept. 14
17
Sept. 29
*Weekends are highlighted

Date

# of Students
Sick On This
Day

Aug. 30

Recommendation and Conclusion

According to CDC, a flu is a contagious respiratory illness caused by
influenza viruses that infect the nose, throat, and lungs. It can cause mild to severe
illness, and at times can lead to death. It is also believed to be spread by the

droplets made when infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks, which can land on
the mouths or noses of other people near the infected person. Other times, it is
transferred by touching a surface that has a flu virus on it and then touching their
own mouth, nose, or eyes. An infected person can transfer the flu to others a day
before the symptoms develop up until 5 to 7 days after being sick. Relating these
facts to the case, it can be said that once a student contracts the virus, it can easily
be spread without him/her knowing. And since we are talking about elementary and
high school students, they might be able to infect others for an even longer time.
Closing the school down every time this happens is not a good idea as it would
greatly affect the students learning. Meanwhile, providing free vaccinations for
teachers or students may help as it is the first and most important step on
preventing flu according to CDC. While providing free vaccinations for both may be
costly, it is better as to prevent them from transferring the virus from one another, if
the budget allows us to do so. However if we just need to pick one, it is advisable for
the students to get the free vaccination as children tend to be at high risk from the
flu, aside from pregnant women and people above 65 years old.
What an overshoot and collapse pattern of the flu says about its behavior is
that it infects a lot of people in so little time and the time it takes for it to slow down
is longer. Thus, giving free vaccinations to the children seems to be the most
economical idea without having to trade off the students learning in terms of the
time spent together by the student and teacher in learning.
IV.

References
Key Facts About Influenza (Flu). (n.d.). Retrieved September 24, 2016, from
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm
Publications, H. H. (n.d.). 10 Flu Myths - Harvard Health. Retrieved September
24, 2016, from http://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/10-flu-myths