An outbreak of scabies is causing rifts within the 2023 OUSA Student Executive team.
The team, once tight-knit over their controversial rise to power, is divided along party lines. Reid, the Clubs and Socs rep, campaigned on the promise of ‘Scabies-Free 2050’, but Welfare and Equity rep Kaia feels she’s been doing all the legwork. The rest of the team have been forced to pick sides. Meanwhile, the bloodsucking insects continue to spread in studentville.
Kaia said that she’s become a sort of de-facto Dunedin scabies expert, with media outlets like The Project contacting her for comment on this year’s outbreak. “If you Google my name, now, it just comes up with a bunch of stuff about scabies and like Chinese articles that have been translated from my interviews,” said Kaia. But Reid, who campaigned on the scabies ballot, feels like this spotlight was meant for him.
Reid said that he’s “passionate about biodiversity” and that scabies “have no place in this country, or on my body.” Although he was running unopposed, Reid said that a strong campaign platform was necessary to let the voters know where he stood on important issues. “It’s important to set a timeline… We’ve got, what, 40 years until 2050? And that is just not enough time in my books.”
He was prepared to take no prisoners. “Scabies have souls, just like us, and unfortunately when push comes to shove I value my life over anyone else's, including scabies.” Reid thinks his race against ‘Mr. No Confidence’ was the closest in OUSA unopposed candidate history, though he didn’t have the numbers to back it up.
Kaia doubted his motivations. “I just think it’s suss how scabies came on a week before [his] campaign announcement,” she said. “I was a little bit worried because his past techniques have included ‘just give it to everyone else and see if that gets them off my body’.” Reid did not deny this approach. He actually doubled down, saying, “I think it's important to get rid of them for me, but I'm not opposed to spreading them to other people.” He acknowledged that the ‘Scabies-Free 2050’ slogan was quite vague, which “brought down the no confidence votes”, but that “it was more of a ‘I wanna be scabies free by 2050’.”
Kaia said that this inconsistency is why she took up the scabies mantle. “I was like, ‘Man, he didn't take responsibility for spreading scabies last year, what makes us think he's gonna take responsibility this time?’ And when he gave me scabies he didn't send me a message to say that, so I was a little bit worried that he wouldn't be able to follow up on these sorts of promises.”
Reid denied giving Kaia scabies, and said that the blame falls on his flat, not on him personally. But Kaia felt that this lack of transparency is why the OUSA President elected her as the scabies spokesperson. “Look, I'm not gonna say that Reid’s not allowed to headline OUSA communications, but I’m just gonna say that all the emails were directed to my inbox.”
Quintin Jane, the Student President, has been trying to hold the team together. “I think we need to take a minute to put aside our differences and come together for this issue that affects the student community,” he said. “If I have scabies, you do too, so this isn't something we can reduce to petty party politics.” And while he looks forward to “an open dialogue between all members of the OUSA executive” on a subject that “faces the entire student community”, the outbreak of biting insects is still spreading between flats.
Scabies are a type of mite. Sarah, an American exchange student here to study mite harvestmen (which don’t actually have anything to do with mites but we went with her interview anyway) said that this “probably wasn’t the first time” that mites had played a role in democracy, and that people like Reid “deserve a second chance.” But when she heard that Scabies-Free 2050 was for me, and not for thee, she said, “That’s not much of a man of the people.” Sarah also confirmed that she did not have scabies: “I didn’t think that was something people had to worry about.”
The mites are contracted through “prolonged physical contact” - meaning that if you’re in computer science or law, you’re good. Their bites cause intense itching, which Kaia said she’d heard compared to the discomfort of “tripping on acid and feeling like your veins are moving under your skin”. But it’s real, and it’s bugs. While a Google search innocently defined “prolonged physical contact” as “handshakes or hugs”, Kaia voiced what we were all thinking: “You kind of imagine like, sex, or something, but you can get them from a mosh pit or whatever.” She said that she imagined something as simple as borrowing a mate’s jersey could lead to contracting them.
From our understanding, shaking off scabies is similar to getting rid of lice as a kid. You can treat the living critters and kill them, but if you don’t get the eggs they’ve laid then once those hatch it’s right back to square one. So, it’s either all at once or don’t even bother. Kaia said that this means washing EVERYTHING at once - clothes, bedding, sofa cushions - which is “really hard in a flat… They're just a nightmare to get rid of.” Like the breatha who gave them to you.
And if that wasn’t enough of a headache, there’s a nationwide shortage of the topical cream that you’re supposed to marinate in for eight hours to get rid of scabies. And on top of that, the second line of defense is a treatment called Ivermectin, which is in short supply because it was a conspiratorial cure for Covid. Yeah. Oh, and it must be prescribed by a doctor, so good thing Student Health appointments are so easy to book.