If you haven’t already heard — or if you haven’t already been a suffering victim of it — the flu season is here.
First it was the avian flu epidemic, then the swine flu last year ... There is no way to predict what obscure species of exotic animal will bring in a new strain of virus next. And of course, we, as responsible college students with ample amounts of money to spare, would like nothing better than to spend $15 on a shot against this virus that we may or may not get.
Well, now there’s good news for those of us who don’t want to choose between money and health: You no longer have to.
Free flu shots are now being distributed on the first floor of the Russell House. Yes, they’re completely free, no strings attached. And there’s a piece of advice we’d like to give all fellow Carolina students out there: Get one.
Nobody cares about your superhuman immune system or about how many thousands of milligrams of vitamin C you inject into your veins for breakfast every morning. In a busy, close-knit college campus with almost 30,000 students, not a single person is 100 percent protected against any virus. Besides, if you get sick, so will your girlfriend and the three people you shared a beer pong cup with a few days ago.
Moreover, we wouldn’t want those flu shots to go to waste. The health center ordered 4,000 shots, and there are 1,000 left that Student Health Services is trying to get rid of before they expire. We complain about the university wasting money all the time, but this is a rare instance when we can prevent the university from doing so while gaining from it ourselves.
Let’s take advantage of it.