CDC warns Superbug could kill more than AIDS, page 3

Indeed, Ashton wasn't playing football this year, but they still didn't even know how he had contracted the infection, so they observed the building and found it unclean, particularly the locker rooms. They didn't just clean the locker rooms, but the entire building as a precaution due to it's uncleanliness. They stated he wasn't playing football because locker rooms are the usual suspect (damp from the showers, lots of people, wounds from games). Locker rooms are also used for gym classes (at least in my former schools), not just extracurricular sports.

Staunton River students organized a protest overnight Monday using text messages and social networking sites. They took Bedford County Schools Superintendent James Blevins on a tour of the school Tuesday to show him how unclean it is, in particular the locker rooms.

Blevins said at a news conference Tuesday that the schools will be closed for cleaning Wednesday. Staunton River will be cleaned by a commercial cleaning company, and the county's other schools will be cleaned by janitorial staff.

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You make it sound as if they only did the locker room by picking that quote you posted with the remark before. And this is from your source. Picking and choosing what sounds good to fit your agenda is not honest, and is deliberately misleading.

Originally posted by stompk
What I find amazing is the fact that they went into the school to clean the locker rooms right?

Ashton Bonds, the kid that died from the superbug, wasn't even playing football this year.

Many of the infections are being spread in gyms and locker rooms, where athletes – perhaps suffering from cuts or abrasions – share sports equipment. Ashton Bonds played football last year but was not playing this season.

They gave the note about the MRSA probably because it's been such a hot topic lately and being widely publicized with the recent outbreaks. It's everywhere, and it's killed ~18000 in 2005 with ~94000 life-threatening conditions. It's now getting publicized because it's just the way the news works, sensationalism. People die all the time from it, but it's really publicized when kids die from it. It was a threat before any of this happened. We're now seeing the visual aspects of it, with every news station jumping on any cases of it.

Source

As for the open casket, transmission of the MRSA when he's dead is pretty unlikely. It's not as if he'll get up and sneeze or cough all over. Airborne spread is rare with MRSA anyway, and even then, it may not even be in his sputum. Precautions for isolation to prevent infection are detailed here:

Source

The same guidelines would probably apply to a body. MRSA is rarely airborne transmitted (mostly through hands for spread, and wounds for insertion), and you generally have to be alive to sneeze and cough

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Also, they turned him away for the appendicitis thing because a pain in the side is a pretty good sign of appendicitis. And it's not as if the doctors would instantly think staph when he had a pain in his side and test him for it. If it were like that, they'd test you for everything in the book every time you went to the doctor, regardless of your symptoms (which would be ridiculous). The symptoms of MRSA commonly are wounds or spots of redness and swelling with an associated fever. Sometimes you don't know until it hits them like a sack of bricks.

~Thomas