Sick, but not COVID sick: How students deal with cold and flu season during a pandemic

After living through a pandemic, many students have found it more complicated to navigate the throws of common sicknesses, like colds and strep throat.

Elizabeth Tonyan, interim director of Miami Health Services, said the Health Center has been fully booked, but it’s not an unusual thing for the beginning of the semester. She said most students come in with some kind of upper respiratory infection.

“Strep is normally very prevalent within the student population, and we have been seeing quite a few but fewer than typical years,” Tonyan wrote in an email to The Miami Student. “We have not had a positive flu case yet and a lot of what we are seeing are the typical viral infections that seem to be lingering longer than normal.”

Sunny Kim, a junior biochemistry major, said he has personally noticed many students under the weather the past few weeks.

“I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of sick people, or a lot of people coughing and with a runny nose in class,” Kim said. “Even though they’re sick, they show up to class.”

The COVID-19 Response Team addressed the amount of sick students in a Sept. 22 email.

“Being sick this time of year isn’t unusual, but we know that everyone is at a heightened awareness of others’ symptoms with the presence of COVID-19,” the email read. “As always, if you are sick, it is best to stay home and not risk getting those around you sick. Use the same health precautions you’ve been using the past couple of years ... and seek out medical attention as needed.

Tonyan also suggested students stay home when they’re sick.

“If the student feels ill enough to not go to class, then they should listen to their body and rest,” she wrote.

But deciding whether or not to go to class when you’re sick is more complicated than that, as Kim knows firsthand as a student.

“Generally, if you’re sick, I think you should just stay home, but I know a lot of professors have attendance or require doctor’s notes to have a valid reason to miss class,” Kim said, “so I think that makes it so students show up to class anyways when they’re sick.”

Kim started developing a cold around Wednesday, Sept. 15, and stayed home from class until he felt better, except to take a quiz he couldn’t make up.

Enjoy what you're reading?
Signup for our newsletter

“I definitely wasn’t feeling too good, so I didn’t really want to go to classes, but at the same time, even if I had my mask on, it kind of puts other students at risk as well,” Kim said. “So I’d rather just stay home for my sake, also for the sake of others.”

David Klump, a sophomore botany major, caught a cold from his roommate on Saturday, Sept. 18. He skipped one of his classes, and was able to utilize a Zoom option for others, but didn’t want to fall behind.

“With most of [my classes], they’re all in person, and I don’t really know anybody in most of my classes,” Klump said. “[My professors] didn’t want people to come to class if they were sick, but also they couldn’t provide the same lecture for students that weren’t there, so I didn’t want to get really behind.”

Kim said he is more cautious about sickness because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Klump said he is more cautious about sickness because of the COVID-19 pandemic and felt weird about other people coughing in public, and doing it himself.

“When I started coughing in public, I really tried not to but sometimes that’d make it worse,” Klump said.

Living through COVID-19 has also heightened Kim’s awareness of his and others’ symptoms, and he said he is trying to be more careful now.

“I notice it more when people cough because before, I didn’t really care and it wasn’t a big deal,” Kim said. “It was just a common cold or whatever, but now there’s a risk of it being COVID, so I’m a little bit more cautious and try to keep my mask on as much as possible.”

@nwlexi

whitehan@miamioh.edu