Dear Professors:
Our Health and Educations ministries have recommended suspending academic activities for 15 days in order to reduce the risk of propagating the influenza virus among the academic community. This is because experts state that the period starting at June 15th and ending in July 15th is considered the period where the epidemic is going to get is highest peak due to our climate conditions. Taking this preventing action the experts expect that the rate of propagation of the virus will dramatically decrease.
Our school is going to suspend the academic activities in the following 15 days following these recommendations. It is worth mentioning that our School carries strict preventive and monitoring program and we have zero cases of virus in our community (students, faculty, administrative personal, cleaning, etc.).
We plan to enforce our safety and prophylaxis measures to protect our students and teachers. Thanks for your collaboration.
The virus mainly affects children less than 14 years old and pregnant women. The situation in regard to people older than 60 years old is not clear because some experts sustainthose born before 1957 were exposed to similar viruses and therefore are not at risk (see the New York Times). In any case only 5% of the affected people require medical attention according to medical experts.
Therefore the 24th IFIP Congress on System Modelling and Optimization will take place as planned although we will be monitoring the situation on a daily basis.