Here are some tips from a random Google search on how to avoid getting sick:

1. Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue, when having to cough or sneeze. Make sure the tissue is disposed when done. Don’t have a tissue? Sneeze or cough into your sleeve.

2. Using your backhand or forearm, when needing to rub your eyes or mouth, will help protect from germs.

3. After coughing or sneezing, make sure your hands are sanitized.

4. Do not share things like drinks, eating utensils, Chapstick or any other personal items.

5. Make sure to bring hand sanitizer or sanitizing wipes.

6. Hand washing stations will be on site at the fair. Use them.

Practicing these tips will keep you and your family safe from H1N1.
Be sure to check out the H1N1 Twitter page at http://twitter.com/H1N1Info.

As you may have heard, the Swine Flu - er, sorry, the H1N1 Virus - has made its home at universities across North Carolina and beyond.

Something strange about this particular new flu bug; it loves young people, particularly those who live in close quarters and cough and sneeze on each other.

Which got one Duke Chronicle columnist thinking about Krzyzewskiville, the tent city that emerges each winter during basketball season. It become home to hundreds of Duke students who camp out on campus for tickets to games at Cameron Indoor.

Talk about your breeding grounds.

Taylor Doherty writes in part: 

"I thought the C-1 and the communal utensil buckets in the dining halls would be the main carrier of the flu until I remembered that Duke students sleep shoulder-to-shoulder in tents during two of the coldest months of the year. But hey, you get grace if it’s below 20 degrees or snows two inches, right?"

Taylor has a point here, given that Krzyzewskiville isn't the most hygienic experience these young scholars will ever have. And all that key shaking and collective chanting may be muted if half the Cameron Crazies are stricken with Swine Flu.

Here's Doherty's column. The Krzyzewskiville section is at the bottom. 

In today's paper, the latest campus swine flu update.

The H1N1 virus hasn't yet become the danger public health officials have feared, but it is becoming increasingly common on college campuses.

The virus, similar to the common flu, hits young people hard. At UNC-CH, it has hit particularly hard, to the tune of about 700 cases so far this semester. But every campus around has had cases, from the big - N.C. State - to the small - Peace College.

There is no vaccine, yet, though drug makers are working on it and the first doses are expected to be available next month.

At NCSU, one professor has a thought as to why certain viruses spread so quickly on college campuses. Essentially, it is this: Students know how to practice good hygiene but don't do so.

Ben Chapman, an assistant professor of family and consumer services, recently published a study on a norovirus outbreak at the University of Guelph in Canada. He found that 83 percent of students who ate in a campus dining hall said they followed posted hygiene recommendations, but only 17 percent actually did so.

And part of the reason is the communication campaigns conducted by health agencies, which commonly use phrases like “self-isolate” and “gastrointestinal illness.”

If you're talking to a college student, Chapman argues, just tell them they'll puke if they don't wash their hands.

“A lot of the stuff that is out there is motherly and generic,” he said. “We have to target students differently than we need to target parents of little kids.”

You can read more about Chapman's study here.

Duke University, in anticipation of a swine flu outbreak on campus, has tweaked a personnel policy and will offer three extra days off to workers who exhaust their own time bank.

Staff members with flu-like symptoms who have used up all their paid leave time will be granted up to three extra days of sick leave or paid time off.

The new policy will be in effect from Sept. 1 2009 to March 31, 2010 and will then be re-evaluated to see if an extension is needed.

In order to be eligible, a staff member must have flu-like symptoms including a fever of 100 degrees or higher; must receive Duke benefits; must have exhausted all vacation, sick and other time off, and cannot be on a full leave of absence.

Here's a Duke HR memo with more information.

Triangle college students are getting an unusual message as they return to college this month: Don't go to class.

At least, not if you're coughing. Or sneezing. Or have the chills. 

Are those symptoms vague and general enough for you? Yes, but this fall university medical staffs are bracing for a big swine flu - er, sorry, H1N1 - outbreak and in an attempt to mitigate it, are telling students to stay away if they have any of the symptoms.

Check it out.

N.C. Central University is reporting at least one confirmed case of the H1N1 virus at one of its summer camps.

The flu virus, commonly referred to as swine flu, has been confirmed at NCCU's Renaissance Upward Bound Camp. There is one confirmed case and several other suspected cases, officials say.

By late last week, the parents of each camper had been contacted, campus officials said.The camp has bee cancelled for the remainder of the current session and all campers, who hail from Edgecombe and Durham counties, have returned home.

This particular flu strain has found a home at summer camps this year. At Duke last month, more than a dozen youngsters were sickened, none too seriously.

Public health Director Gayle Harris has two words for anyone feeling flu-ey.

"Stay home."

As of this morning, Durham County has had only one confirmed case of the so-called "swine flu" — now more scientifically called "Novel H1N1 flu" — but the stuff is out there along with various other manifestations of the cruds. And Harris said her department is getting lots of calls from doctors seeing "novel" symptoms like nausea and diarrhea along with the usual aches and fever.

A free, public forum about swine flu will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Morehead Planetarium on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.

The event, part of the Current Science Forum, will be led by Dr. James Thomas, associate professor of epidemiology at UNC-CH’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Thomas will discuss the flu virus as a potential pandemic, what to expect and how to prepare.

For more information, visit www.moreheadplanetarium.org or call Morehead Guest Relations at (919) 962-1236.

A science forum at UNC Chapel Hill Thursday will address issues related to the swine flu.

The Current Science forum will be held at 7 p.m. at the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center. It will feature James Thomas, a UNC-CH epidemiologist with the university's Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Thomas will address the swine flu issue, epidemics and pandemics, and how the public can prepare.

The event is free and open to the public. Click here for more information.

Got the flu? Swine flu? Flu-like symptoms? A cough?

Don't come to UNC Chapel Hill's graduation ceremony on Sunday.

That's the message out of Chapel Hill this week, where the university is asking folks to do their part in avoiding the spread of the H1N1 virus by staying home if they have "flu-like symptoms."

The university will do its part by asking the folks handing out diplomas at various departmental ceremonies this weekend not to shake hands with graduates.

Here's the info.

On a related note - UNC officials are casting a wary eye to the weather reports for this weekend. Rain could disrupt the outdoor commencement set for Kenan Stadium. In the case of rain, the plan is to shift over to the Dean E. Smith Center, and students are being instructed this week to prepare for that by grabbing tickets for an indoor event - just in case. (Kenan Stadium is much larger than the Smith Center and can comfortably accommodate all visitors. If the event shifts indoors, capacity becomes an issue).

This forecast (as I write this on Wednesday around noon) projected a 30 percent chance of rain and isolated thunderstorms. 

Last year's commencement ceremony is surely fresh in the minds of campus planners; the university kept the ceremony outdoors, and rain eventually showed up and forced officials to shorten the ceremony.