The Gazette

Swine flu scare blowing over

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 By Jessica Reese

It’s the second day of school, classes are finally underway and the whole school is beginning to get into the swing of a new year. It seems like any other first week of school, when suddenly it’s announced: GBHS is home to a swine flu (H1N1) outbreak. The virus that had sent the world into frenzy was no longer an abstract concept, it was here and the threat was tangible. The effects of the flu weren’t visible right away; a missing kid here, a sniffle there. But as the weeks progressed and everyone came into contact with each other, the evidence of swine flu on campus became increasingly apparent. More students were turning up absent with swine flu symptoms and the flu seemed inescapable. “We were hit really hard in August,” GBHS nurse Linda Warfield said. “We had 70 some-odd cases (in) the first two weeks.” With news vans parked outside and GBHS making headlines, those empty seats spoke volumes – ever present reminders of the lurking threat. It’s no wonder that before long students were panicking. After all, the feared virus said to be strong enough to kill a 20 year old in their prime was haunting them like shadows. The question, however, is if this reaction was truly necessary. Did students overreact to the outbreak? Or was there cause for concern? According to Warfield, students weren’t entirely wrong for reacting to the flu the way they did. “There’s always a cause for concern when a number of people have the same illness,” Warfield said. “This is considered a pandemic; you rarely hear that now-a-days, but people all over the world are coming down with this.” Some students, however, didn’t share this view and found the reaction overly dramatic. “It’s just like any other sickness that’s gone around the school,” sophomore and swine flu victim Bradford Smith said. “Everyone’s going to get it.” At GBHS, luckily, the reported cases of swine flu were not incredibly serious. Despite the H1N1 virus being a dangerous one, the form that hit GBHS is not as perilous as it could be. “Unless people had underlying conditions,” Warfield said, “they were pretty mild cases.” In addition to the cases being mild, they did not last long for many of the afflicted students, lasting only for three to five days. Even so, H1N1 is still a strong virus and those who are unlucky enough to fall prey to it are in for a bumpy ride. “It was probably the worst I’d ever felt while I was sick,” Smith said. “It was really hard on the body, but it wasn’t like I was dying.” Fortunately the outbreak seems to have been contained as of late. Though there are still students being stricken with the virus, the frequency has decreased. “The last couple of weeks we’ve actually had more problems with stomach flu, headache thing(s) than we’ve had what I’d consider symptoms for the H1N1 virus,” Warfield said. While swine flu cases may have begun to decline, however, it doesn’t mean GBHS is entirely out of the woods yet. “We started in August,” Warfield said, “but we still could be (into) January or February with flu problems.” It’s not just H1N1 that could plague GBHS in the coming months, but also the standard seasonal flu that hit in the fall and winter months. In the end, it all comes down to one thing: personal responsibility. Those feeling sick or suffering from flu-like symptoms need to stay home. And those at school need to wash their hands, avoid sharing food and drinks and take all of the standard, everyday precautions. With maintenance of the necessary precautionary behaviors, there is hope for GBHS in the coming months. “We made it through the first big round,” Warfield said, “and hopefully that will be our (only) big round.”