Photo courtesy Arek Socha/Pixabay
Flu season is back in North Carolina and even more severe than last year. It started in October, 2016 and is branching all the way into late March.
This year, the H3N2 virus is rapidly spreading across the country. It has become widespread in 49 states and has killed at least 110 people in North Carolina in comparison to last year, during which 59 people died.
Students at Northwood are feeling the wrath of the flu virus as it spreads throughout the state. Now recovered from the flu, junior Shannon Brennan describes her experience with the virus.
“I had the flu a couple months ago,” Brennan said. “My flu experience was terrible. My whole body was achy and it was like a cold, but extreme the whole time.”
Senior Zoe Kaegi also described her experience while she was sick with the virus.
“I was home for three or four days passed out in bed because I was so exhausted and couldn’t move,” Kaegi said. “If I moved, I felt nauseous, so I just stayed at home.”
Because it is so easily spread, Kaegi believes she caught the virus from working at her job.
“I work in a job where I interact with people in the public a lot, and I don’t always have time to go wash my hands after shaking people’s hands or handling their stuff, so I probably got it from work,” Kaegi said.
Despite missing many days of school, some students who were out with the flu did not have a challenging workload.
“I was out for four days,” said senior Jamison Dorsey. “Surprisingly, I had a pretty easy week on the week that I missed, so I didn’t have to make up that much work. Some teachers just kind of excused me from assignments. Had it been my first semester, it would have been really hard, because I had my harder classes, but this is an easy semester for me, so I didn’t miss much.”
Although the students didn’t have stacks of missed assignments to make up, sometimes the teachers who were stuck on that end.
“I have to set the work aside until [students] come back and do it and then I have to do a lot of reteaching,” Agriscience teacher Gale Wells-Brickhouse said.
Students believe that the virus can be prevented by making sure the school has always enough available resources to prevent the virus.
“Make sure there’s always soap in the soap dispensers in the bathroom,” junior Zack Baggett said.
Brennan believes that students and teachers should get the vaccine to prevent the virus from spreading.
“Make sure that everyone gets a flu shot that also helps the flu last for a shorter period of time,” Brennan said. “The more people that get it, the less likely it is for it to spread. So, definitely get flu shots and take care of yourself when you’re sick.”
Kaegi also believes that the flu shot is an effective precaution in flu prevention.
“They used to heavily promote getting the flu shot here, which is what I used to do, but I never saw anything for it this year, so I didn’t get one this year,” Kaegi said. “If they could bring that back or more heavily promote it, I think that would help a lot, because a lot of people just don’t know where to go.”
– By Cameron Bernstein
