On one hand, given the 800-plus cases we have, this is a serious situation. On the same token, we have 2.8 million people in Iowa, so the relative risk of any single visitor getting mumps...

These people may have exposed other people on those planes or in these airports.

It’s hard to get anywhere (from Iowa) without connecting.

The college environment is a perfect situation for infectious disease, especially mumps. It’s shared through saliva, so students can get it by living so close together, coughing, sneezing, sharing drinks and kissing. It tends to...

College graduation, high school proms, we’re not recommending any be canceled. We just want to ensure that people are aware of the risk.

We’d hate to say we’re out of the woods.

They could all be random.

There’s been cases in Dubuque and Iowa City, but we don’t know which campus was infected first. Any infectious disease spreads easier on a college campus.

We’re focused on stopping it right now. Maybe after we have it under control we’ll explore the origins of the outbreak … even if we knew what was causing it, it wouldn’t change how we...

When it comes to infectious disease, college campuses are sort of a perfect storm – close quarters, where people are coughing and sneezing, where they are not thinking much about hygiene and think nothing of...

Fortunately, for most people, mumps is a fairly mild illness and they get over it quickly. Some people may have it without even any symptoms and not even be aware that they’re spreading it.

This year so far we’re well over 500 and there’s no signs that it’s going to slow down soon.

We used to see about five cases a month. At the tail-end of December we realized we had a situation on our hands.