Along with the typical flu season causing much of the problem, statistics provided to the Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency Board of Health during their Thursday meeting indicated that school sickness this season is becoming increasingly worse.

For the current Fiscal Year of 2019-2020, schools in the three counties have reported 2,471 cases of colds without fever compared with 1,766 cases for the same period during Fiscal Year 2018-2019.

In addition, there have been 3,327 cases of flu like diseases compared with 2,063 last year.

Several school districts in the area including Union City and Bronson had to shut down over the last month due to the number of students and staff members who became ill.