At UNH, Hoping the Swine Flu Doesn't Arrive

Talk about gaining the freshman ten.

Holloway Commons, the main dining hall at the University of New Hampshire, is a smorgasbord of smells and sights for the hungry.

You can wander happily from one station to the next for brick oven pizza, veggie stir frys, homemade bread, mammoth salads, fresh fruit, chocolate cheesecake and gourmet coffee.

But this year, students could gain more than pounds here.

They could get a case of swine flu.

Like any close quarters, a dining facility that serves thousands can become a Petri dish for infection.

So dining director John Plodzick has added a few tasks to his opening day preparations.

“We have beefed up our sanitization stations here so there’s sanitizing stations right after they check in. Our staff is going around at some of the check in points and sanitizing every fifteen minutes.”

And Plodzick also has a plan to take care of those kids who do get sick.

He’ll break his own no take-out rule and let friends deliver meals to students confined to their rooms.

“We don’t quite have the resources to deliver thousands of meals every day around campus but we’ll do whatever we can do to help the university meet the need.”

Of course, everyone is hoping that this campus of almost 15,000 students won’t see thousands of cases the flu.

And UNH spokesperson Erica Mantz says administrators are doing what they can to prevent it.

When the H1N1 vaccine is available, UNH will hold flu clinics for students, staff and the surrounding community.

But the school is starting with a campaign that reminds people of common-sense behaviors.

“Our health services will be doing a lot of preventative, talking about covering your mouth and nose when you sneeze and cough, avoiding contact with people, washing your hands frequently, that’s probably the biggest one through the CDC.”

And parents have already been teaching their new freshmen the same message.

“Clorox wipes are in there…”
[Laughter under]

That’s Tina Vians from Derry.

She and her husband Bob are moving their daughter Jess into Stokes Hall, one of UNH’s freshmen dorms.

Vians: “Mom already took care of that.”

But UNH administrators may find it hard to comply with one of the CDC’s biggest recommendations: keeping sick students from infecting healthy ones.

Mark Rubinstein is vice president for student and academic services.

"Realistically the university doesn’t have great opportunities to isolate students. As you can see looking around at today’s move in, the university is well enrolled this year, and so the opportunity to isolate students is a relatively limited one for us.

That’s just a bit of an understatement.

Jen Fallon, Amanda Abbott and Ann Marie Pelaquin are squeezed into a room originally designed for two people.

“The loft bed’s mine. It’s pretty high up.”

That’s Pelaquin talking about her bed, which hangs on a wall a few feet over a desk.

“We’re going to go get a ladder for it. ‘Cause I can’t really get up there.”

School officials are already recommending that students who come down with H1N1 go home if they can.

But they may run into resistance – and not just from the students.

Jess Vians’ dad, waiting with a pickup truck full of stuff for the Stokes Hall elevator, sums it up for a lot of parents on move-in day.

“Hey – She’s out of my house…”

This year, H1N1 may test the mettle of parents whose kids have finally left the nest.

They’re hoping not to see their kids back at home any time soon.

For NHPR News, I’m EG.