New York City ? A school assistant principal who was sick for several days with swine flu on Sunday became the city’s first death linked to the virus and the nation’s sixth.

Mitchell Wiener, who worked at an intermediate school in Queens, died Sunday evening, Flushing Hospital Medical Center spokesman Andrew Rubin said. Wiener, who had been hospitalized and on a ventilator, had been sick with the virus for nearly a week before his school was closed on Thursday. Complications besides the virus likely played a part in his death, Rubin said.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the death of Wiener, who was 55 and had taught for decades, “is a loss for our schools and our city.”