Closing large numbers of schools to stem the spread of swine flu will damage the economy and cause chaos for working families, business leaders and parents' groups said yesterday.
Schools could remain shut for several weeks after the summer holidays if a surge in illness occurs as predicted this autumn, potentially costing the economy billions of pounds if employees stay at home to look after sick children or fall ill.
Stephen Alambritis, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said that the self-employed and smaller businesses who are already suffering in the recession could be toppled by just a few days away from work due to illness.
“Livelihoods are at stake. Large companies can shift people round but in small firms if one person out of a staff of four has to stay away, that's 25 per cent of the workforce out of action,” he added.
The warning came as a further 83 cases of swine flu were confirmed in Scotland, bringing the total infected with the virus north of the Border to 420 and marking the biggest daily increase so far.
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Another two people infected with the H1N1 virus were admitted to hospital, bringing to 11 the number being treated on wards. In another sign that the virus is spiralling, a further five schools were closed in Scotland yesterday, including a primary and two nursery schools in Glasgow, and a nursery and primary school in Paisley. There are now 22 partly or fully closed schools, although some are due to reopen next week.
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish Health Secretary, told MSPs on Thursday that the rate of hospitalisation for people with swine flu in Scotland is “in line” with the US, one of the worst affected countries in the world.
The majority of the new cases - 74 - are in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area. Two of the three clusters in Scotland - in the south of Glasgow and Paisley - are in the authority's area.
There were also two new cases in Fife, one in the Forth Valley, one in Grampian, three in Highlands and two in Lanarkshire.
Health chiefs at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said that they had increased four-fold their supplies of anti-viral drugs, signalling that they expect a significant rise in the number of cases.
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A spokeswoman said that they had recently taken delivery of 30,000 packs of Tamiflu, bringing their stocks to 40,000 packs.
In addition to local stocks, all of Scotland's nine health boards have access to centrally-held supplies. The Scottish government has enough supplies of anti-viral drugs to treat half of the population, holding 1.47million doses of Tamiflu and 890,000 doses of Relenza.
Health officials are currently working to increase stocks to cover 75 per cent of the population.
Schools and local councils have been ordered by the Government to make emergency plans in case of extensive outbreaks.
Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4Children, a children and families charity, said that employers should be sympathetic to the need for staff to look after children kept at home during school closures. So far there have been more than 920 cases of the H1N1 swine flu infection confirmed across Britain.
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However, Andy Burnham, the Westminster Health Secretary, said yesterday that the public “should not panic”, despite the “significant increases” in the number of new cases.
Sir Liam Donaldson, the Government's chief medical officer, said on Thursday that “several million” people could become ill with flu in the event of a surge of cases as the school term starts or later.
Government advisers are recommending mass school closures for this scenario - in part because of the effect they had in curbing the spread of the Spanish flu in 1918-19.
It is estimated that such a policy could help to prevent one in seven cases of flu in the event of a pandemic peak, and one in five cases in children.
Mr Burnham reiterated that Britain was well-prepared for dealing with a pandemic, with enough antivirals to cover half of the population, and vaccine orders in place.
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“At some point, we will need to move our focus away from limiting the spread of a localised virus, towards mitigating the effects of a widespread virus,” he added.