The UNL housing department is on the defensive this week after claims that several students are being quarantined in the UNL health center with possible SARS-related symptoms.

The department continues to deny the rumor even as evidence mounts against them, including the head of Center for Disease Control and Prevention stating that there was a SARS outbreak “in UNL housing areas” and signs all over the health center reading “Quarantine Area: SARS Outbreak.”

“It’s just the flu, I swear. And it’s not even a bad flu like the swine flu, it’s just that unfortunate– but not deadly to the human race–stomach flu that makes you barf all the time,” Keith Zaborowski, Assistant Director of Residence Life, said.

“If you guys would just look at the facts, you’d see that quarantining people for the stomach flu is normal and rational and happens all the time.”

When asked why the CDC is refusing to let anyone within 100 feet of the health center and why they only go in the building with hazmat suits on, Zaborowski said that the university and the CDC take the stomach flu “very seriously” and don’t want anything getting in the way of “the academic process of the University.”

As of press time at least three of the quarantined students had died from what the UNL Housing office called a “wicked bad case of the stomach flu.” Their possessions will all be professionally cleaned and returned to the dead students’ families.