After a push to have all members of the Colorado State University community get weekly COVID-19 tests, the University announced that 463 geese tested positive for COVID-19.
“Well, we knew we’d see a spike when we started testing new populations, like geese, but we didn’t expect this big of a spike,” said Corinne Tine, who helped oversee the expansion of CSU’s testing body. “Still, it’s not all too surprising.”
Early patterns indicate that geese are still congregating in large numbers across the campus, as evidenced by the constant presence of goose excrement all over the University campus.”
Tine accredited the high number of positive cases to the way many geese are behaving. She said most geese hadn’t altered their behavior since the start of the worldwide paramedic, which allowed for rampant COVID-19 spread among goose populations.
“We’re supposed to be wearing masks, social distancing and staying home,” Tine said. Ryan and The Goslings, a popular musical group in goose culture, even performed near The Lagoon, drawing hundreds of geese together for what University officials are calling “the worst superspreader event we have ever witnessed.”
Many CSU students are well aware of the unchanged goose behavior.
“Nothing has changed,” Facé Masque, a third-year French international student at the University said. “Pre-photosynthesis, the geese all flew in flocks, stood out on the Intramural Fields in big herds and dropped merde all over the campus. They still do that. No masks, either.”
CSU decided the situation was bad enough to warrant bringing in outside help. The University brought in an expert in goose behavior, Dr. Vaxx Stimmy, from New York University to help analyze and correct the geese’s pandemic-prolonging behavior.
“I’m from out east,” Stimmy said. “I see geese all day, they’re all over the f*ckin’ place. But this behavior here in Colorado is just out of control.”
He’d only been on the job for a short few hours, but Stimmy already seemed stressed out with the scale and magnitude of the work before him. Stimmy said that the lack of physical distancing was his biggest concern with the geese’s behavior.
“The biggest issue is that these geese aren’t even trying to social distance,” Stimmy said. “They’re always in their big groups, flying in their V-formations, yadda yadda yadda. These wild geese in the west wander around like nobody’s business. They aren’t even staying home after testing positive!”
Only time will tell if the University’s efforts will be effective. Early patterns indicate that geese are still congregating in large numbers across the campus, as evidenced by the constant presence of goose excrement all over the University campus.
Tine, Stimmy and other University officials warned of goose-to-human transmission, especially after confirming such a high number of cases among geese.
“To put it bluntly, stay the f*ck away from the geese,” Stimmy said. “They got COVID-19 like the (New York City) subway’s got rats.”
The Unprecedented Times reporter Dylan Tangerine can be reached at letters@collegian.com or on Twitter @unwashedtiedye.
