Your mother’s incessant nagging is no longer the best reason to get a flu vaccine. Now it’s grade concerns that will push students into the vaccine lines. (Let’s face it — health worries are never on the top of the list.)
A memo released last week to university deans, directors, and department chairs explained that professors can now require students to provide medical documentation of illness if they miss an exam or fail to turn in assignments during finals week.
Associate Provost Bernard Mair, who sent the memo, surely had swine-flu-fakers in mind when formulating the policy change, along with the declining numbers of new swine flu cases in and around Gainesville.
But a resurgent swine flu, a spike in the regular seasonal flu or even the current swine flu (albeit at disappointingly subpandemic levels) could pose a threat to students’ health.
This is because the new policy will compel students to attend exams if they feel ill but have not concretely determined whether they have the flu.
Putting potentially infectious students in a room with up to 400 others for hours sounds like a nightmare scenario. But it’s bound to happen, regardless of the policy changes.
UF’s responsibility is merely to limit the risk. If this new policy does the opposite, the administration should really consider what’s more of a threat: fakers or infectious test-takers.
