Swining and Dining

Today, as I stood battling for my place in the always chaotic Quincy House lunch line, I ignored the “excuse me” calls flying about on all sides and focused on the various messages Harvard University Dining Services was sharing with me. Through table placards, video screens, and posted advisories, HUDS was doing everything it could to save me from getting H1N1 through nifty, cheerfully presented tips. Such tips, however, seem more intended to comfort their makers than they are to actually stop H1N1’s spread.

Swine flu is an unavoidable risk on campus, and I suppose remaining mindful can only improve one’s safety. Yet the number of advisories and preventive measures seem better suited for a game of “swine-flu dodging”—so let’s play. To win your first point, you have to make full use of the Purell dispenser by the entrance. I have overheard students comparing the dispenser to its counterparts in other Houses. “Lowell’s totally doesn’t work,” one student shared. One point, Quincy.

Upon entering the dining hall, notices warn students to use a clean plate each time one gets more food from the lines to avoid contamination. Too bad for those environmentally conscious friends trying to save resources and conserve water—in the game of swine-flu dodging, the Dudley Co-operative Society is surely at a disadvantage.

The game raises its stakes as you sit down to eat. According to tradition (invented right now), you have to dive for cover if someone sneezes in the beverage area. If this happens in the food line, for an extra point, a player can simply turn his head and no-look point to an H1N1 sign. The most difficult maneuver in the game, attempted and unconverted in one try so far, is to read HUDS’s on-table signs about swine-flu risks and then successfully mention “the crook of the elbow” in conversation unrelated to “places where you should safely sneeze.”

OK, fine—so HUDS probably had more in mind than promoting games like this when it made these advisories. Yet its messages aren’t good for much more. The advice they offer is confused and largely superficial. Suggestions that students wash their hands before eating are common sense and should be applied before every meal, not just during swine-flu season. The health messages it prints often seem to arise more out of a desire not be held liable than out of genuine concern. Nutrition fact placards disappeared when some people complained, for instance, but they later came back—sort of—in the form of printouts available somewhere in each dining hall. (Even The Crimson remains confused by HUDS’s quirky new plan for nutrition info.)

One can’t blame HUDS for trying, but what do such notices actually achieve? Tips like using a fresh plate for seconds do not seem particularly effective in a packed dining hall like Quincy’s. Anyone who has lunched there knows the basic crowd dynamic: Right after noon and 1 p.m. classes, the place is more like a battle scene out of “Gladiator” than a serving station. Then, in the middle of each hour, with no classes disgorging hungry, recently sleeping students, it quietly recovers while the tables strain under full capacity, random students brushing shoulders as groups compete for space.

Our crowded eating area itself seems the most likely way that disease would spread. Signs warning about things like plates seem laughably inadequate in this context. Follow these tips, they seem to claim, and one will be safe from danger. But if the student next to you fighting to reach the last pizza slice has H1N1, then you may be bound for UHS’s quarantine rooms, regardless of whether his plate is clean or whether he earned his point for Purell use.

Certainly, H1N1 is a serious risk—this is not to discount it as a threat. Those with pre-existing medical conditions are at a higher risk of danger than the average population, and unfortunately several students nationwide have died of complications. Advisory campaigns to supposedly minimize our risk, however, are ineffective. It’s common sense and the responsible self-reporting of symptoms that will protect us—not refusing to shake hands with people juggling clean plates.


Alexander R. Konrad ’11, a Crimson associate editorial editor, is a history concentrator in Quincy House.