The start of flu season

How to stay healthy around those under the weather

It’s the season of coughs, sneezes, sore throats and stuffy noses, as the weather changes throughout October and continues into November, the flu season is in play.

While students attend classes, hang out with friends and attend campus events, they have a possibility of contracting the flu or the common cold.

Since the temperature drops, people would stay inside where it is warmer and would be in close contact with other people, depending on where they live. This is especially amplified when living in the dorms on campus.

Ferris Outfitters provides cold and flu medicines for students to purchase on campus. Photo by: Shaunti’ara Reynolds | Freelance Photographer

Nurse practitioner of the Birkham Health Center, Christy Bourdlaise, explained how the chances of getting the flu, or common cold, increase in close living situations.

“I would say with the typical college-age student, it’s probably high just because of the type of living situations that most college students live in,” Bourdlaise said. “You live with multiple people who you know you’re living in close quarters with, things like that. So it’s very easy to transmit upper respiratory infections like influenza.”

According to the Center or Disease Control, influenza A and influenza B are the most common flu to contract during the colder months.
Like every problem with illnesses, there is a solution to fix it. Bourdlaise offered simple solutions on how to combat the flu.

“If you don’t have it or you’re trying not to get it, it’s kind of a lot of those same precautions that we took when we had COVID-19, it’s the simple things,” Bourdlaise said. “It’s washing your hands, avoiding putting your hands up near your face or mouth, which is a bad habit of all of us.”

Bourdlaise explained viruses need a host to spread. Any living organism would make an ideal host, when the host makes contact with a surface the virus spreads to that surface, however, it doesn’t last long.

Even in those short timeframes, the virus is on a surface and people will still make contact with them as they come and go. When someone doesn’t wash their hands, the surfaces they touch can also become contaminated with the flu virus.

Mathematics education sophomore Mason Brooke provided some insight. Despite numerous signs in the bathrooms, people still don’t wash their hands.

“You touch the same stuff as everyone, so it doesn’t matter if you try to keep away from someone who’s sick if they’re touching the same door knobs as you,” Brooke said. “But I mean also, I think it’s just you are near so many people, the likelihood of someone being sick without them even knowing is pretty high.”

It is important that when a person is sick they prevent other people from getting sick. Wearing a mask while ill can also help with slowing the spread.

A lot of common themes as to how the flu and common cold spread have to do with people not washing their hands when they’re supposed to.

Social work freshman Alliyah Martin talked about her experience with the common cold while attending Ferris.
“I’ve heard a lot of people have been sick, I’ve been sick like twice already since I’ve come here but that’s about it, just like the common cold,” Martin said. “A lot of people are gross, and usually don’t wash their hands. They would just touch everything rather than if you’re sick, keep to yourself,”

Even though Martin contracted the common cold, both the flu and common cold are caused by viruses.

However, unlike the flu, the common cold takes days before fully taking effect. The symptoms such as sore throat, coughing, congestion, body aches and headaches, while the flu usually involves a fever followed by other symptoms.

Bourdlaise has seen the difference of how each type of illness hits a person.

“Typically when you catch a cold, you know, you start to feel like ‘oh, I kind of feel that in the back of my throat.’ Maybe the next day you wake up and you’re congested like it’s very gradual,” Bourdlaise said. “The flu typically hits you very quickly. You go to bed one night, wake up the next morning and your fever, chills, body aches, headache, you know, sore throat, coughing, like it all hits you at once.”

Whether it be the flu or the common cold, both can easily be treated and prevented using simple things like using hand sanitizer, washing your hands and wiping down surfaces.