Kaylene Wright

Students are beginning to feel it in the air. The sniffles during class, the embarrassing and constant coughs, and that saying among friends, “don’t get to close to me, I’m sick.”
Cold season has begun. The months September through April generally have the more illness than other months. This is because people stay indoors due to the lowering temperatures outside. Cold weather itself does not cause illness, but people congregating indoors causes easy spread of germs from person to person.
Campuses are among the germiest places. Students live in just about as close quarters as you can get. Students share bathrooms and dining halls, and their own room with their roommate or roommates.
“The most common illness that we see in Hood’s Health Center are eye, ear, nose, and throat complaints,” Teresa Cevallos, director of health services at the Hood College Health Center, said. “The reason that they are grouped together is that it is not unusual for a student to have a sore throat along with an earache or nasal congestion.”
Cevallos says that the common cold, officially referred to as an upper respiratory infection, is also a huge complaint. “There is nearly a tie for second place,” she said, “which is gynecological visits and upper respiratory infections.”
Will Shackley, a senior at Hood, is one of the many students who have already been sick this semester. “I had a runny nose, fever, and a sore throat,” he said. “It felt like slight death.”
Meaghan Jones, another student, has also experienced sickness this school year. “It was bad. I had a fever, a runny nose, and felt extremely weak,” she said.
Most students try their hardest to get to class. Sometimes, however, illnesses prevent even normal daily function from occurring. “It was a real struggle just sitting up in bed,” Jones said. “I couldn’t make it to class even if I wanted to.”
Other times, students may be able to make class, but risk infecting other students. “Yes, I was contagious,” Shackley said. “I infected all of my friends who hadn’t been sick already. I don’t know who I got it from.”
Posing a rarer but much more serious threat is the flu. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that flu seasons are unpredictable. Though flu seasons happen every year, they vary in severity and length.
The easiest way to protect against the flu is to get the yearly vaccine. Hood’s Health Center has plenty of flu shots available for students. “We have given 26 flu vaccines to students so far,” Cevallos said. “The majority of our flu shots are given to faculty and staff, but we still have flu vaccine available and would like more students to get them if they don’t get the flu vaccine from their home health care provider or from a local facility.”
“This year’s flu shot was virtually painless,” Alyssa Jenkens, a student, said. “The nurse said there would be a tiny pinch, but I didn’t even realize she had done it.”
Getting a vaccine is extremely quick and doesn’t involve much pain at all. Cevallos says that students may walk in whenever it’s convenient for the student to get the vaccine, and that no appointment is required. “Please tell your friends to come in and get a flu shot!”
Regardless of the sickness, symptoms, or reason for feeling not 100%, basic safety measures can be taken to prevent spreading illness. The single most important way is to frequently wash hands. This is especially important on campus, because as already discussed, many everyday items are shared.
Other basic safety measures students can take include not sharing food or drink with others, covering coughs and sneezes, and maintaining proper sleep and eating habits.