With flu season well under way, the Washington State Cougars made an excellent defensive and offensive showing against their opponent, the brash and crafty newcomer, the Swine Flu Bugs.
With more than 2,000 college students sick, the campus and community has reacted calmly, and with appropriate measures. Reassuringly, there have been no deaths and no students have developed severe symptoms requiring hospitalization.
Dr. Dennis Garcia told the Spokesman-Review that most students experience three to five days of discomfort with telltale H1N1 symptoms: Sore and scratchy throats, chest pain reminiscent of heartburn, and headaches that come and go. Many also have chills, body aches and nausea and a fever upward of 103 degrees for two days, Most people are encouraged to take fever-reducing medicine such as over-the-counter acetaminophen, and rest. Only if symptoms worsen or people have underlying health problems should they seek medical attention.
To this end, WSU is handing out free flu kits including a thermometer, painkillers, throat lozenges, sport drinks, hand sanitizer and tissues. Garcia said he believes many students have gotten the message, and rather than seeking medical help they are resting and being cared for by roommates, the Spokesman-Review reported.
Universities across the nation are taking precautions and actions to deal with back-to-school outbreaks, such as shuttling the sick to quarantined dorm rooms (Boston University) or letting the ill lie still and moving the healthy in together (Princeton). At Atlanta’s Emory University, what administrators call a “self-isolation facility,” the students call “the Swine Flu Dorm,” “the Leper Colony” and “Club Swine,” the New York Times reported. Humor always helps. Just not as much as hand-washing. Experts stress that good hygiene is singularly important to curbing the spread before the vaccine is available.
Meanwhile, cities and states are busy making vaccination plans. In Washington D.C., city officials are working to set up mass vaccination centers in a preventative effort aimed at people without medical care, and those in the high-risk groups, and to keep people from flocking to emergency rooms, the Washington Post reported.
Since this strain of flu is new, experts are uncertain exactly what to expect. Blending caution and reason, such as letting football games go on, and handing out flu kits, seems a reasonable choice. It is, however, a difficult balance.
As Mark R. Fracasso, vice president of medicine at Mary’s Center, a maternity clinic in Washington D.C., told the Washington Post: “This may be nothing, and yet it may be big.”
Experts said that before the recession, too. So it’s best to stick with the Boy Scouts. Be prepared.
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