Temperatures have been hitting rock bottom in College Park with greater frequency recently, and it is causing students to become concerned and take precautionary measures to stay safe and warm.
The weather took a toll on students like Amitha Singh, a graduate student at A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, who said that she has been suffering from a dry cough since the start of the semester.
“It is impossible to escape the cold winds and the past week has been especially rough. When the winds hit your face, there is no way of avoiding it, and I have fallen sick,” she said.
Singh said that she plans to avoid exposing herself to the bad weather until she gets better.
Raj Topiwala, a UMD pre-medical student, lives on campus and said that this winter has been nothing short of brutal.
“This is a pretty big campus and you really have to bundle up. It is easy to get extremely cold even when you have a mild walk across campus,” said Topiwala, who runs outside every morning. “It’s hard to run when it’s freezing outside.”
Topiwala said he has resorted to bundling up with extra layers for his runs and avoiding sick people indoors.
“As a pre-med student, I am careful with germs for the most part and haven’t gotten sick yet,” he said.
Jennifer Guida, a doctoral student studying epidemiology at UMD’s School of Public Health, said that cold weather illnesses are mainly respiratory infections, colds (rhinovirus) and influenza.
“The best way to protect yourself is to wash your hands regularly, get plenty of sleep, drink a lot of water and get the recommended amount of exercise per week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” she said. “Be smart and bundle up in the cold weather!”
Earlier this semester, the University Health Center issued tips via email to students on how they could avoid catching the flu, an airborne infection.
Talking about people with infections, Topiwala said, “You see it a lot because everyone is in close proximity [with each other] during such weather conditions. You are always going to be together when in class [or] in the workplace. College students are together regardless and infections spread easily.”
He said that life is especially difficult for on-campus students when the weather causes the campus to limit opening hours for key places, such as campus diners and gyms.
The lowest regional temperatures in February were on Feb. 20 in Baltimore, Md., when the temperature dropped to 1 degree Fahrenheit, and down to -4 degrees Fahrenheit on Feb. 24 in Dulles, Washington, D.C., according to the National Weather Service’s Monthly Weather Summary.
Featured photo by Susann Shin
