What is this mysterious sickness swarming about the school? It is not a normal cold, the symptoms are harsher and it is not the flu.   

  Illnesses are common in schools as students are all in the same building for six to seven hours a day. As students are passing by each other, germs take their turn and spread to everybody. The new sickness within the school and town is called the Plainfield Plague. The reason is because the virus lasts for weeks and infiltrates the lungs. It has its own name because it has not been diagnosed as anything yet. The name creator has yet to be determined but it could be inferred that because the sickness is going in and out of Plainfieldpie chart1, someone took the liberty of naming it. 

  Olivia Hagerman, senior, had gotten sick with the same illness three times, as it never fully left her immune system. During the end of September to the full month of October, she and her friend kept trading the sickness around each other. 

  “It never fully went away.” Sean Dorsey, sophomore, said he started feeling ill so he laid in bed to rest and let his body handle the sickness. The Plainfield Plague exhausts people’s bodies so they are super tired all the time. 

  Grant Kearney, junior, has said this is his third time getting the virus. The sickness left students with a sore throat, then a stuffy nose the next day. There are variations of the Plainfield Plague as some with it have a cough but others may not. 

  While people start going to the doctors with the illness, they have been diagnosing people in the community with a sinus infection or ear infection as it is one of the effects of the Plainfield Plague.  

  “I didn’t know my body could produce this much mucus.” said Adam Depew, English teacher. Depew started to get the Plainfield Plague at the end of September and didn’t realize what was going on. He thought he had covid but after a negative test proved that he did not, a student explained to him what the symptoms were and the time frame.

  “It took a week and a half to get over,” said Kearney. The process of the body producing the antibodies to fight off the infection is a short time but taking cold medicine helps the person not feel as sick.

   The sickness popped out of nowhere and the school community is the prime target. There isn’t really anything anyone can do to avoid getting it but washing hands and following good hygiene often can help stop the infection from spreading. A good immune system is a solid way of fighting it faster and because of covid and having to wear masks often, immune systems haven’t had to work overtime like it does when getting sick. 

  Quinn Gronke, senior, said “It felt like my body was trying to kill me.”