However, the media seemed to blow things out of proportion. International students were receiving phone calls from parents across the world to see if they were OK. Each day, newspapers read higher and higher numbers of swine flu cases. However, if you look closely, you would have noticed Pullman only had a handful of confirmed swine flu cases. The rest were flu like symptoms.

It wasn’t long until Pullman was considered plagued by the swine flu.

This created huge PR issues for WSU. They had to step in with serious crisis management techniques to stop the bad publicity. Student Heath and Wellness Services handed out germ masks, flyers, information and hand sanitizer. They offered emergency walk-in times for students with flu-like symptoms and advised all students to stay home if they felt ill and not go to class.

It is interesting to see how it all played out… Since WSU was one of the first schools to start Fall Semester so early in the year, WSU received all the swine flu publicity. I’m sure many other schools would have experienced the same wrap if they had started earlier than late September.

Here’s a video about the swine flu outbreak in Pullman… just shows how blown out of proportion it became.