Swine Flu prompts worries about Fall Ball

    Tufts officials "seriously considered" pulling the plug on Fall Ball for fear that cramped attendees might spread the swine flu virus, the university's medical director and dean of student affairs said yesterday in an e-mail to students.
    Dean Bruce Reitman and Medical Director Margaret Higham urged students to stay away from the Friday dance if they feel ill, and to take precautions if they come to the dance.
    The annual event typically is densely packed and highly populated. This year seems poised to keep up the precedent, as the line of students waiting to retrieve Fall Ball tickets yesterday snaked around the block.
    Higham and Reitman encouraged students who had fallen ill to avoid attending not only Fall Ball but also all other school-sponsored social events this semester.
    "This is a situation we've never encountered before, this type of pandemic flu," Higham told the Daily. She noted that there is the potential for an "explosive outbreak" of the virus on campus.
    She said that the decision not to cancel Fall Ball had not been easy. "It's a hard call," she said.
    But Tufts Community Union (TCU) President Brandon Rattiner said he was "not concerned at all" about the potential for an outbreak. He added that the Senate, which runs Fall Ball, was not consulted on the possibility of its cancellation.
    "To be panicky and start implementing social-distancing policies at this time would be shortsighted," said Rattiner, a senior, alluding to the official e-mail's insistence that ill students avoid social gatherings. Such policies are sometimes implemented on college campus during disease outbreaks. Nearby Babson College shut down for two days last spring during a severe outbreak of the norovirus.
    Reitman agreed with Higham that the extent of the flu's spread is impossible to know, but explained that because Fall Ball is an important tradition, the administration decided against canceling the event.
    "It's the first social night of the year," Reitman told the Daily. "We want to be prudent about not adding an event that's likely to create an opportunity for the virus to spread ... but we don't know that [will happen]." But he emphasized that students should not attend if they are nervous about contracting the virus.
    Higham stressed the importance of personal hygiene in helping to limit the risk of spreading the virus during the event. The e-mail offered suggestions to help limit potential exposure, including washing hands frequently and not sharing drinks. It also urged students to "be mindful about physical contact with others."
    In May, Tufts confirmed cases of swine flu in two students, both recent graduates of the Class of 2009. No Medford-campus cases have yet been reported to the university this fall, according to Reitman.
    Higham remains optimistic that if students are "conscientious" about hygiene and personal behavior on Friday night, there will be no major problems. Regardless, extra measures are in place to help encourage hygiene at the event, including hand sanitizer stations and extra staff on hand to maintain the Gantcher Center bathrooms. Extra bathroom facilities will also be added adjacent to the main building for use by attendees.
    Administrators have not yet discussed canceling other university-wide events later in the year, according to Reitman. "I think Fall Ball presents the first real opportunity to see if people will be a little bit cautious," he said.