Thanks to you the entire school, surrounding counties and any parent that has a child affiliated with Longwood University or Hampden-Sydney College are now panicking that they might have you in their systems. All of the rumors about you hanging around with so-and-so on the hallway, or the dorm across the way, has everyone on their toes.
With you, Norovirus, students are using excuses not to come to class to stay healthy, but are also using you as their newest sick notices. The good part is, at least most professors don’t take sick notes.
You’re nothing to sneeze at. The idea of being given what is practically dysentery via air contact, not even bodily fluids, is the whole reason people are panicking. Other universities have either cancelled classes or are bringing food to students who have the virus so they do not leave their rooms to keep it from spreading. However, in attempts to prevent you it’s easier to place stricter sanitation implements and hope for the best.
What’s the point, Norovirus, when we already know you spread like wildfire? Anyone who even looks remotely sick is automatically avoided, as if the student is a CHI Rotunda on the pavement. If there were a way to be Bubble Boy, everyone would find it the latest and greatest fashion piece. Although, when the chance to wear masks in public is available, people still don’t take the chance, even if it might keep them from catching you. One could possibly make the mask look fashionable, if they tried hard enough.
Whenever one walks down the hallways, you are the talk of the town. There are always new reports and stories of someone else catching it, or that the original epicenter is spreading it through another method. Whatever the case may be, it just adds another reason to buy more Vitamin C.
Sometimes, Norovirus, I wonder if one needs all the symptoms to have you or just some of them. It may be food poisoning, the regular flu strand of the month special, or even a hangover but we are likely to call it by your name. WebMD will surely misdiagnose me but I’ll still use it, just to be sure.
Normal routines, like washing one’s hands, are the only prevention from you, Norovirus. There is no health boosting smoothie, no potion nor vaccine that exists to save us. At least with all the other epidemics around the country there is a vaccine that prevents the spread of the disease. We just happened to luck out and get you, Norovirus. What’s the point in getting the flu shot if it only prevents one, and seemingly minor, disease compared to you?
Your name and status has become part of puns and jokes here on campus. Let’s not forget you even have a twitter page now letting us know of your ever-moving spread. Now all that’s left to do is keep waiting for more emails and updates on more infected students, or wait and see if enough people become ill to cancel classes. Perhaps we will even get as lucky as to have you fade out of our population.
Hugs and kisses,
Longwood Students
