Middlebury College Pandemic Plan H1N1 Virus
Middlebury College plans to remain open and keep a watch on the H1N1 virus and following recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WHO has raised the alert from a phase 4 to a phase 5 which is one step short of a global pandemic. They are watching other colleges and they are managing the mild outbreaks, so as of this hour by hour watch they will remain on their current plan of watch and wait.
There has been one possible but not confirmed case in Vermont in Orleans County from an unidentifyied person who had traveled to another state where there were confirmed cases. That person is said to be recovering well.
“From a scientific standpoint, this is a virus that is new to most people’s immune systems,” Peluso, director of the Health Center said. “In other words, we don’t have a lot of immunologic experience with this, and if you study pandemics, that has the potential to become severe and cause a lot of illness.”
Middlebury College student, Nate Woods ’11, remarked “I think that every couple of years somebody decides on some new disease to have a panic about,” Woods said. “It’s okay to have a big media frenzy – it’s fun, I guess – but I think it’s just this media fear culture. We have to have something to be afraid of. It’s never anything actually that bad here. Remember SARS? Remember West Nile Virus? Remember avian flu? Anthrax? Killer bees? I’m much more worried about MRSA, really.”
