With the turning of the season comes not only fall foliage, but the beginning of cold and flu season. Over the past few weeks, students have noticed a higher-than-average number of school absences. However, new studies indicate that skyrocketing illness levels may be attributed to something more than the onset of cooler weather.
Health officials reported an outbreak last Wednesday of a never-before-seen strain of the flu virus. “I’ve been in the field for years now, and I was completely stumped,” says one local virologist, Dr. Frank Lu. “Now, the flu virus is one that mutates quite frequently, but this is just unprecedented.” F. Lu and his colleagues have only just recently reached a consensus on the contagion’s origin.
“About three weeks ago, the guidance department released the class of 2016’s GPA histogram,” reports F. Lu. “And almost immediately after, the first student contracted mild sinus inflammation. That was Patient Zero.” In medical science, Patient Zero indicates the index case, or initial patient of an epidemiological investigation. In high school vernacular, “Patient Zero.0” is how students in the lower echelons of the new histogram may now refer to their GPAs.
From the first student, the epidemic spread like wildfire. Students began to fall ill left and right upon catching sight of their position in the preposterously skewed histogram. “I’ve been sick for so long. I knew I should have studied for that bio midterm in freshman year,” says one senior. In contrast, another student credits his good health to his strong immune system. “I wasn’t affected by the histogram at all,” he explains. “I always wash my hands, and I’ve always gotten really good grades. I mean, I skipped first grade. So.”
“This is why we have to vaccinate our children,” says one tearful parent. Their child currently maintains a 4.09 GPA, which is the highest GPA one can have without making it into the uppermost histogram bar. “She’s been sick for days. I knew I shouldn’t have bought into all that anti-vaccination junk — it’s all empty rhetoric! I’m changing my political affiliation. And I’m putting my second child, a fourth-grader, into a tutoring program.”
Columbia has already established a quarantine and refuses to admit any affected students.
