PARODY: New strand of Senioritis strikes Boone, imperils futures

A new pandemic has hit the U.S. and struck Boone County especially hard, stripping thousands of high school seniors of successful futures.

The virus has been identified as a new strand of Senioritis and is proving to be very contagious.

Patricia Rayne, a nurse practitioner at the Pediatrics of Florence who has diagnosed and treated over twenty people with Senioritis, explained that the symptoms come in stages and tend to come over a span of three to four weeks.

“It always begins subtly with a lack of motivation and homework fatigue which progressively get worse,” Rayne said. “Then comes the endless complaining.”

“From there it all goes downhill so fast,” she continued. “The excessive tardiness kicks in next, and that’s sort of the symptom that gives the infected person’s family and friends an idea the patient has fallen victim to Senioritis.”

“After that comes the procrastination and eventually they just start sleeping more and more,” she said. “And in the most extreme cases, they sleep so much that they slip into a coma.”

Rayne also explained that if a case of Senioritis is caught before the procrastination stage, then the spread of the virus can be slowed down.

So far, the virus specifically affects high school seniors and, in some rare cases, juniors.

The first recorded case in Boone County was on August 25, 2020 and case numbers have grown rapidly since then. This virus, however, has not caused any known deaths–at least not any human deaths, according to senior Alexis Smith, the first person in Boone County to have Senioritis.

“I was the first one to have it,” Smith said. “And it completely killed my GPA.”

Smith explained how she went from a 4.0 GPA to a 2.5 after “only two semesters” of having Senioritis.

Although the virus is contagious, the FDA recommends that seniors continue to attend school in the hopes that it builds immunity to the virus.

A cure for Senioritis has not yet been found, and though there are several vaccines currently in the works, it is unknown when they will be available.

High school seniors have started rumors that the only cure is graduation.

“It would take a big miracle for graduation to completely cure all of these seniors,” Rayne said. “But you know kids and their wishful thinking.”

The CDC recommends that friends and family members of any high school seniors and juniors should closely monitor them and urges them to call their physician if symptoms are present.