With classes now in full swing, students and faculty can help themselves and each other by taking a few simple steps to help decrease the spread of illness-causing germs around campus this cold and flu season.

As the fall season begins, cooler temperatures and rainy weather will bring about cold symptoms and flu season can begin as early as October. There are many ways you can protect yourself and others from being illness this flu season.

Get your flu shot! The Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that everyone ages 6 months and older (with some exceptions) get vaccinated yearly. With new strains of the flu emerging annually, one cannot be too cautious when it comes their health and the health of others.

Another way to combat cold germs is by remember good hand washing hygiene. Professor of Biology, Robert Johnson says, “Simply washing hands, not touching others, or sharing food or drink for the same vessels if ill, staying home if ill, coughing or sneezing into the inside ‘crook’ of your elbow,” are some simple methods to avoid spreading germs.

According to Johnson, the difference between a bacterial infection and a viral infection is that bacteria are considered life forms. That is why when we have these types of infections we are given antibiotics. Antibiotics are “anti-life agents,” he says.

“Viruses thus far have been identified as non-living, self replicating structures that in essence highjack our cell’s gene reproduction pathway, using a cell’s tools, to make copies of themselves,” Johnson said. Antibiotics cannot be taken for the treatment of a viral infection.

With such a high level of foot traffic around campus and cold and flu season just around the corner, it’s important to identify the areas where extra care in hygiene should be practiced.

Ella Criss of the custodial staff states, “The bathrooms are messier because of high traffic and we cannot go in during the day. The toilets get gross and backed up.” She goes on to say that so far students have been respectable up to this point but that it’s still early on in the quarter.

“It makes us feel good when students thank us for our work and we try to share that with the others,” she said. But there are a few things that students can do to help make Criss’ job and that of her colleagues easier. “Stop spitting chewing tobacco in the sinks and urinals and stop spitting gum on the carpet and sidewalks,” she said. “I don’t like digging that stuff out but my job is to clean, and that’s what I do.”

While it’s hard to fathom that college-aged students should require reminders to clean up after themselves, Criss says that last year there were several students who made the same messes in the same places and didn’t care to clean it up. Since the quarter is still fresh, she has not been able to identify any “problem areas” and says that it’s been good so far.

Keeping the environment clean and healthy is everyone’s responsibility. It requires teamwork and responsibility but it is an easy and very doable task that all students should want to be a part of.