STAFF EDIT: Demystifying the flu

‘ Monday’s Student Union General Assembly meeting featured Student Health Services Director David McBride, who defended Boston University’s H1N1 isolation policy even after The Daily Free Press brought its possible discrepancies into light last week. The meeting also followed a campus-wide email sent to students by SHS in the same vein. While McBride presented a strong case against any foul play that may have been suspected of SHS and BU administration regarding the isolation of ill students, he failed to address the main problem wary students have against the policy, which is its air of mystery.

It has been made clear by student reactions that few blame administration for encouraging the isolation of ill students suspected to have H1N1, especially because there are no medical tests being conducted to determine whether a student actually has swine flu, and it’s safer to take these precautions when symptoms are exhibited. In fact, many are applauding the university for its protocol. What isn’t being cheered is BU’s shiftiness, which was only exacerbated, rather than quelled, at the GA meeting, where McBride spent more time trying to mitigate rumors that aren’t really being spread than he spent removing the ambiguity from what exactly is going on in Danielsen Hall, why there is an empty floor there and why no one knew the details about BU’s H1N1 plan.

McBride’s email to students expressed that there is no additional danger of contracting H1N1 if an ill student shares a dormitory with healthy students, but it also has been made clear that people with preexisting health conditions are more at risk of suffering from a more serious and possibly fatal case of the illness. Students have the right and the need to know when ill students are placed in their dormitories, and there are ways to go about this without breaching health privacy laws. It’s understandable that BU is trying to prevent campus-wide panic by keeping information of possible infections mum, but by that same token, keeping secrets can also cause panic. This is particularly true when the secrets are revealed by another source, and the administration then overcompensates with its explanations.

As for compensation for the unnecessarily clandestine attitude with which the administration has thus far approached the handling of swine flu on campus, all McBride and SHS can do now is own up to their mistakes of not keeping students and parents in the know, and move forward in a more accessible manner. The H1N1 virus is a real and immediate threat to the university ‘- pretending that it isn’t is disingenuous. With the energy and time they’ll save by not covering things up, campus health officials can put even more focus on adequately preparing BU for an imminent flu season that doesn’t have to be crippling if students are educated and informed.