Princeton’s New Red Solo Cups Not Doing Their Job

A few weeks ago, we brought you the news of Princeton’s creative–but fatally flawed–idea to combat a nasty campus meningitis problem. As we put it then:

The school has devised a solution in which it’ll make available 5,000 red Solo-looking cups that all say: “MINE. NOT YOURS.” (Photo here.) Hate to break it to you, O Tiger Faithful, but if every single one of those cups says exactly the same thing, that’s about as useful as having students all drink from identical red cups.

Well, either no one’s using them, everyone’s using them, or people are getting sick the old fashioned way. From the Daily Princetonian:

A female student has been diagnosed with probable meningococcal disease and is receiving treatment in a hospital, the University announced in an email Thursday evening. If confirmed, hers will be the sixth case of bacterial meningitis linked to the University since March.

OK, so assuming the red cup experiment is a failure after two weeks, we’ve got a better idea. (I actually just consulted with a colleague.) Surgical masks! Everybody! Now!