As the city prepares to reopen more than a dozen schools Tuesday following the latest H1N1 outbreak, flu concerns at four Yeshivas in Brooklyn have prompted school officials to close their doors.

Magen David Yeshivah Elementary School, Yeshiva Tiferes Yisroel, Masores Bais Yaakov, and Yeshivat Shaare Torah will be closed for the rest of the week.

Officials at the schools say they made the decision because of high absenteeism and probable cases.

Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represents the area, says the closures will allow the schools to sanitize.

"Clearly these schools were concerned. They wanted to protect the student body, so they decided to do what they considered the safest thing and that is to close the schools for a number of days, deal with the issue and then everybody will be able to back," said Hikind.

The Department of Health says there are no confirmed cases at these schools. They also say they are only testing unusual clusters and severe illness.

On Sunday, city health officials confirmed that a Queens woman in her 50s with underlying health conditions died over the weekend as a result of complications brought on by the H1N1 virus. The name of the patient has not been released.

On Monday, Queens City councilman Eric Gioia said city officials should be more forthcoming about the H1N1 outbreaks.

"I don't think any of us have any information and that is part of the problem," Gioia said. "Right now people in Queens are under a lot of stress because there are so many unanswered questions. When you hear 'underlying conditions,' it's so vague and you have no idea what it means."

The first victim in the city was Assistant Principal Mitchell Wiener, who died earlier this month. His school, I.S. 238 in Hollis, Queens, prepared to reopen on Tuesday after being closed over flu concerns.

The total number of confirmed H1N1 cases in the city stands at 280. However, the DOH stresses that most of the cases remain mild.

One of the schools preparing to open Tuesday morning is I.S. 318 in Williamsburg, where the school's fire marshal said crews had worked around the clock to make the school clean for the students' return.

"We had a crew of seven," said Nelson Montalvo. "We're doing what's called a general cleaning – tables, walls, chairs, bathrooms – everything we could possibly think of. Everything is cleaned throughout the building."

Meanwhile, a person in Illinois is said to be the latest to die from the H1N1 virus.

Health officials would only say the person lived in the Chicago area and had other medical conditions. This brings the national death toll due to the virus to 12, including the two in New York City.

The Centers for Disease Control says there are more than 6,700 cases in the U.S., most of them mild.

The World Health Organization has tallied more than 12,500 H1N1 cases worldwide.