Swine flu comes to campus
I spent yesterday interviewing students at the University of Maryland College Park about how swine flu is changing their lives -- or not. So far, the university has at least 557 suspected cases of the virus and cases at campuses nationwide are rising fast.
So I asked: are you, invincible college students, changing your hygiene habits to protect against the virus? The answer: Yes and no. Some students said they were pretty scared of "the swine," and have seriously stepped up their hand-sanitizing cough-in-their-sleeve ways. Others think the scare is overblown. "It's just the flu," they scoff, and carry on with their business.
And still others assume it's inevitable that they'll get sick but they have no fears of it being too bad. So, they crack jokes. Stop swhining, already! (That means stop whining to squares like you and me) Ah, to be young and carefree.
As for how swine flu is affecting the dating scene, as one young man told me, he checks to see if a woman is coughing before he makes a move "I don't want to be swapping swine," he said. Nice.
As these students approach the swine flu with a mix of apprehension, fear and invincibility, administrators are urging them to wash their hands and stay home if they're sick.
The university also appears to be dealing with some mixed messages about who has the swine flu and who doesn't. Some students told me their friends were diagnosed with seasonal flu, not swine flu. And a woman I interviewed as she was leaving the health center said she was told she probably has the seasonal flu, not the H1N1 variety. But the truth is, doctors typically aren't testing to determine the difference. In addition, studies point to swine flu being the predominant strain this fall. And surveillance from the CDC has shown most of the virus tested in the last month has turned out to be swine flu.
Baltimore Sun photo
