 |
|
Public Affairs coverage from our award-winning staff |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Swine Flu Case Tests Campus Readiness
Produced by Gabriel Spitzer on Tuesday, September 15, 2009
|
|
Caroline is the first person in her downtown megaodorm diagnosed with probable swine flu. Her face is obscured here to protect her identity. (WBEZ/Gabriel Spitzer) |
Going off to college for the first time can be nerve-wracking. Then imagine getting really sick just two weeks in – how frustrating it must be. Now imagine you’re not just sick: You are the leading edge of a global pandemic, which is beginning to erupt on college campuses. That’s what one student in Chicago is going through. WBEZ’s Gabriel Spitzer brings us a glimpse of life in self-isolation, and what one person’s story reveals about how prepared we are.
The University Center is a massive dorm – 18 stories high, overlooking the Loop. It houses nearly 1,700 students from three schools. Up on the 12th floor, a Roosevelt University freshman named Caroline is hunkered down in bed. She’s been there for about 3 days, and cabin fever is setting in.
CAROLINE: I stare out the window hoping that soon I can be outside and see sunlight. Or even if I could just go in to the lounge on my own floor, that would be better than laying in my own bed. I’m so sick of it.
Last week Caroline became the first person in her dorm diagnosed with probable swine flu – “probable” because health workers have mostly stopped doing tests to confirm the strain. We’re not revealing Caroline’s last name, to preserve some of her privacy, but by way of disclosure, her uncle works for WBEZ. After her diagnosis she was asked to isolate herself in her room.
CAROLINE: My roommate comes back and says, 'Oh everyone’s teasing me, like, do you need to come sleep in my room?' It kind of makes me feel like, 'You know, I’m a monster or that I have the plague,' which, well, I don’t know, it kind of is like the plague. But I think they’re making it out way worse than it is.
Health officials warn the virus could spread fast as the new school year gets going. It’s already flaring up elsewhere – yesterday University of Illinois officials said more than 250 students at the Urbana-Champaign campus have suspected swine flu. Experiences like Caroline’s are early indications of how well prepared university officials are for full-blown flu season.
Roosevelt is relatively new to housing students downtown, so it doesn’t have its own student clinic. They send students to a private, commercial clinic about a half-mile away. Associate vice president Tanya Waltman says Rossevelt’s policies are based on guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
WALTMAN: We make sure they have what they need. We provide them with contact information on people they can call 24 hours a day. We’ll offer to bring food to them. And then we also talk to the roommates in that room.
All that seems to have gone as planned. But the CDC says it’s not enough to have roommates tend to sick students. Waltman says university policy is for dorm staff to check on the person two or three times a day. It’s not clear that happened. Caroline says after an initial visit, no staff came to her room for two full days. Finally on day three, someone came by.
CAROLINE: They only scheduled to check up on me this morning, and that’s it.
Janice Johnson says that’s not true. She’s executive director of University Center, and in charge of dorm staff. She says employees have checked in on Caroline at least a half-dozen times, but she declined to provide records to back that up.
Caroline’s roommate Arie Marchioni doesn’t recall those visits either. She and her other two suitemates are the ones who have been bringing Caroline food and medicine. Arie, Sara and Beth have only known Caroline for a few weeks – but now, they’re her lifeline.
MARCHIONI: We had the option of going to maybe another room or even possibly an apartment in the building, but we didn’t want to, cause we’re like, well why would we leave her there? That’s just ridiculous. It would be terrible to be sitting in a big room by yourself.
Caroline is lucky to have attentive roommates – not everyone might be so fortunate. Still, this is a demoralizing way to start school. People are out there making friends while she’s stuck in bed, coughing and knitting. And she’s afraid it will be harder to catch up if people know her as the “swine flu girl.”
CAROLINE: My roommate Arie, she says don’t worry about it. And I try not to but again, it makes me feel like once I do get out of here, maybe they still won’t talk to me, or they’ll stay away from me. And that would just be heartbreaking.
Caroline finally did get out of her room on Monday. And she may not have to worry much longer about being singled out. By winter, in such a massive dorm, the flu could touch hundreds. And that will be the real test of how ready the administration is.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Cathy, Valparaiso, IN // Wednesday, September 16, 2009 @ 4:49 PM
I find it irritating that to date 3 college students in this country have died from the swine flu and WBEZ does this fluff story about this girl whinning about how having the flu is hurting her social life.
|
|
Pam, Minneapolis // Friday, September 18, 2009 @ 9:53 AM
I agree 100%. How dare this selfish young woman fail to die from her case of H1N1 and deny us the kind of news story we so desperately need more of--death, tragedy and suffering. Who cares that what should have been some of the most exciting days of her life -- her first days as a college student -- have been spent in total isolation! On a side note, at least when she finishes her first semester, perhaps she will know how to spell "whining" correctly.
|
|
|
|
|