It’s an unwelcome holiday for the schools goers! According to media reports, New York had closed down 30 schools including one private school on Thursday. Increasing reports of students with flu-like symptoms prompted the schools to take such step. Twenty-eight government schools were closed at the recommendation of the health department and two private schools closed down on their own. One private school in Manhattan — Horace Mann — has also decided to close down on its own after a number of students exhibited flu-like symptoms.

According to the news release, of the 30 schools closed by the Department of Health, five will re-open Friday.In the city’s news release, city Health Commissioner Thomas R. Frieden repeated what has become a familiar refrain: “We continue to see a rising tide of flu in many parts of New York City. As the virus spreads, we will look to slow transmission within individual school communities by closing individual schools.”

Last week in New York, 11 schools in Queens and one in Brooklyn were closed down after reports confirming cases of the H1N1 virus, commonly called swine flu, at Intermediate School 238 in Queens and unusually high levels of flu-like symptoms in the others. An assistant principal of Intermediate School 238 died Sunday after being hospitalized with H1N1. Frieden has said the administrator, Mitchell Wiener, had an underlying condition.