Once bustling DLSU campus akin to ghost town

Usually at lunch time the coffee shop would be packed with a noisy crowd of students. But at noon Thursday, many tables were empty. Several people who came in were wearing medical face masks. "It's scary," said Avie, 21, one of four people seated at one table reviewing for a nursing board exam. "What the hell is happening?" Nearly all of the students interviewed for this article declined to give their real names. The coffee shop is meters away from the huge De La Salle University (DLSU) campus on Taft Avenue in downtown Manila. On June 3, school officials suddenly announced they were closing the school for 10 days after a 21-year old female foreign exchange student tested positive for the A(H1N1) flu virus. On Thursday, health authorities said another foreign student, a male, was also sick with the virus. With authorities saying the infected female could have come into contact with up to 120 other people, there was noticeable unease among students who live near the campus. In the nearly empty cafe, anybody who sneezed was immediately looked at with suspicion. Outside the shop, Virgie, a cigarette vendor, said: "We are all scared – I don't want to infect my grandchildren." She explained she was just staying on to make some money but because of the shutdown, her earnings dwindled. Normally by midday she would have earned P800. Instead her sales didn't amount to P500. One student, Justin, claimed that the infected foreigner was Korean, and that now, when he encountered anybody who looked Korean, "I try to move away or walk in a different direction." Health officials have verified that the infected foreigners were not Korean, but GMANews.TV has chosen not to divulge their nationality to avoid stigmatizing it. It's this kind of behavior - a precursor to panic - that Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said is worse than the flu itself. He told reporters that A(H1N1) is a mild form of influenza with less than a one per cent fatality rate. "You should fear dengue more than A(H1N1)," he said. On one of the white pillars outside DLSU’s building, a notice from DLSU President Bro. Armin Luistro attracted a small crowd. It said the school would remain shut until June 14. “The academic community is advised to monitor flu-like symptoms, to stay away from crowds, and to practice good hygiene," the notice added. The vacant white halls of the university made it look like a ghostly museum, spacious and quiet. Katrina, who said she was the mother of an 18-year-old student, said she was trying to get to the registration office. “I’m worried but I’m not scared," she said. “I’m sure La Salle is on top of the situation and this entire thing could be gone in a jiffy." At the College of St. Benilde (CSB), near the De La Salle complex, officials were giving away face masks to anybody who wanted to wear them. Mae, a sophomore Hotel and Restaurant Management student at CSB, said that when she felt the onset of a cold Wednesday morning, she wasted no time having herself checked at the clinic. The nurse confirmed it was just a cold, prescribed vitamins, and ordered her to wear a face mask. She claimed that the mask caused people to look at her suspiciously. "They think I might have it. They think I'm infected." Her friend Jamie shrugged off the looks. "The masks give us an added sense of security." Josa, another CSB student, was resentful that DLSU was closed down, but his own school wasn't. "Why do they have 10 days of quarantine? We share most of the facilities in school, eat at the same restaurants - shouldn't we be worried of being infected too?" Rowell, a Multimedia Arts student at CSB, said he didn't mind wearing a mask while rushing along the busy street of Vito Cruz. He just ignored the stares of passersby. But as he stepped inside CSB, he quickly took off his mask. “I’ll wear the mask outside, just not in my school. It’s embarrassing," he said. - Joseph Holandes Ubalde, GMANews.TV