US: The new back-to-school ritual: Quarantines

It looks like a typical college dormitory: the functional single cots, the students lazing in pajamas and sandals, the laptops and iPhones clicked to Facebook, writes Robbie Brown in The New York Times. But the Turman South dormitory at Emory University in Atlanta is what administrators call a self-isolation facility. Or, as students call it, the Swine Flu Dorm. The Leper Colony. Club Swine.

It is a holding pen for the coughing, wheezing, hand-sanitizing souls whose return to college coincided with their infection by a serious and highly contagious virus. More than 100 strong at Emory, they belong to a growing number of students at colleges across America experiencing a bizarre start to the year: the on-campus quarantine.

There are now more than 2,000 swine flu victims on college campuses, according to an American College Health Association survey. And as colleges welcome students back this month, they are keeping those infected with the H1N1 virus at a safe distance.
Full report on the New York Times site