Running a fever of 100.1 degrees Fahrenheit, freshman Corinne Mayfield woke up from a three hour nap after falling asleep at noon. She has slept for nine hours today, and in all the time she’s been awake, she hasn’t eaten anything. It has gone on like this for four days now, as she’s been sick with the flu.

The flu is generally non-fatal to the average person. It can, however, have a severe effect on the very old and young. This includes the small children who reside in our nursery. This could potentially be a very dangerous situation if a student where to catch something and unknowingly spread it to the children. It could also be spread to any of the pregnant students or teachers, which can result in birth defects, premature delivery or even a loss of the child in more extreme cases.

“If you wanted to wear a mask around, that would be a way to prevent it, but somebody could cough on a surface and you could touch it and put it to your mouth and then you’d get the flu,” said school nurse Wendy Miller.

When we came back in the week of Jan 28, all of the school’s surfaces like tables, keyboards, water fountains, etcetera, were used more frequently than they had been in the past month or so. The more students touched the surfaces, the more bacteria and viruses gathered on the surfaces around the school. With that, school nurse Angela  Knupp and Miller predict that there will be a sharp increase in the amount of students absent in the late February and early March weeks.

To keep this from happening, Miller and Knupp advise students to wash their hands and stay home if they feel like they could potentially have caught something contagious.