Editorial: Pitt must reveal swine flu figures

Swine flu permeated Pitt’s campus at the beginning of September — we all knew it was… Swine flu permeated Pitt’s campus at the beginning of September — we all knew it was coming.

Carnegie Mellon said it currently has about 200 students on its campus with flu-like symptoms, while Penn State’s Health Services reported 30 cases on its campus. But how many suspected cases does Pitt have? We don’t know.

Pitt is being tight-lipped, saying only the terse, all-too-familiar assuagement: Don’t panic.

Jay Frerotte, Pitt’s director of environmental health, said he would not specify how many students on campus had reported flu-like symptoms or had been advised to self-isolate.

“We don’t want to get into the numbers game. There are active cases on campus, but there is no cause for panic,” he said.

Amid the media hype and abundant warnings — some of the most recent caution signs include the catchy W.H.A.C.K. posters around campus and the swine flu advisement e-mail that Dean of Students Kathy Humphrey sent to students — perhaps the biggest fear is fear itself. Officials don’t want to start a panic.

There’s a difference, however, between not wanting to incite panic and withholding information from the student body. Perhaps Pitt doesn’t know the exact number of students afflicted with swine flu, but it should know how many have reported flu-like symptoms. Hopefully our numbers aren’t as large as Carnegie Mellon’s or Washington State University’s, where it has reported around 2,500 cases, or around 13 percent of its student body. But no matter how looming the figure, Pitt students should be informed, rather than left in a state of dubious uncertainty.

Pitt’s reticence on this issue also makes us wonder: If there is no reason to panic, why don’t they provide numbers?

Should H1N1 become more prolific in the coming months, officials can’t hide behind the proverbial “don’t panic” safety net forever. Again, they’re trying to prevent panic, but at some point, soothing becomes deception , a shallow attempt at reassurance. At some point there is legitimate cause for concern, and students deserve to decide for themselves when that point is.

If students aren’t apprised to the numbers, especially if the number of cases substantially grows, some will continually ignore preventative measures — such as hand washing — whereas they might not have had they been aware of the number of cases.

Also, when the H1N1 vaccine becomes available to Pitt students later this fall, students can more appropriately judge whether they want to receive it if they know the extent of their risk.

Officials seem wary that a panic could provoke more students with flu-like symptoms to head for the Student Health Center instead of doing what they’ve been instructed to do: self-isolate. If Pitt is worried that releasing the figures could encourage more students to visit Student Health rather than the recommended protocol, then it simply needs to further its education campaigns, because being open about what’s going on is the only responsible way to handle this.