OPINION: The Frat Flu in the Era of COVID

Every year, right as the sun starts to set a tad earlier and the weather gets a little colder, a mysterious plague washes over our beloved Palouse. Call it the Frat Flu or the Moscow Plague, the Era of COVID has made it quite the issue. 

It’s not a surprise that students get sick during the first couple months of college. The amount of drink sharing, open mouth coughing and general disregard for hygiene is pervasive. I haven’t been able to escape a classroom experience this year without someone having a coughing fit. 

And prior to the pandemic, I wouldn’t have bat an eye. But now things are a bit more complicated. What once was a normal coughing fit sparked by an annual bug or a frog in their throat, is now a sign of the times. 

Any insinuation of sickness holds the unnerving weight of “what if…?”  

I don’t blame others for being uncomfortable at the sound of a cough or sneeze; we’re in trying times. But where does the line between concern for COVID and the Moscow Plague begin and end? 

My worst experience with the Moscow Plague was my freshmen year. I was bed-ridden for a week straight—coughing, sneezing, fatigued, the whole nine-yards. That sounds an awfully lot like COVID-19, doesn’t it? 

Obviously, it wasn’t. Yet I still took similar precautions. I went to the doctor, got diagnosed, got a prescription and stayed home for a week straight. The standard protocol. 

Nowadays, I think students are playing a riskier game. Some may be so sure that their mystery illness isn’t COVID-19 that they feel safe enough to continue about their ordinary lives, rubbing some dirt into their immune system and toughing it out. 

That’s a really, really stupid idea. 

I get it. No one wants to be the guy with the pandemic plague in late 2021. The consequences of those frivolous actions, however, are hefty. This is the whole reason we still wear masks in class. This is how variant forms are created. This is how the never-ending pandemic continues to not end. 

I’m willing to bet that those who are vaccinated and still getting sick (with symptoms like the Moscow Plague) don’t have the Delta Variant. That being said, act like you might. 

Stay home, quarantine, take medicine and get tested. Even if you don’t have the Delta, no one wants the Moscow Plague. It sucks.  

For those who aren’t vaccinated, for heaven’s sake please don’t continue about your normal life if you’re sick. I’m probably not going to be the driving force that convinces you to get two shots that are backed by thousands of medical professionals with years and years of intensive education and training and who are probably smarter than you’ll ever be. But! Don’t be selfish, stay home if you’re sick. 

I hate these COVID Columns. They feel so redundant now. So, this is a Moscow Plague column, with a COVID-19 flair.  

Getting the Moscow Plague is a part of the Vandal experience, I’m a firm believer in that. Actively spreading the plague is not, especially during a pandemic, so please don’t do that.  

Carter Kolpitcke can be reached at [email protected].