from the not-enough-trash-cans-to-go-around dept.
Brutal stomach bug erupts in Colorado, closing down an entire school district
A violent stomach bug has exploded in Colorado's Mesa County Valley School District 51, leading to the swift shutdown of the entire district, which includes 46 schools and programs that serve more than 22,000 students.
The outbreak first struck a high school, which was closed down Thursday, November 14. In the subsequent days, the outbreak took out five other schools and led to more than 5,000 absences in others (due to either illness or fear of the outbreak). On Wednesday, November 20, district officials made the bold decision to close down the entire district through the Thanksgiving holiday.
Health officials have not officially identified the pathogen causing the outbreak but suspect it is norovirus—a highly contagious germ that causes vomiting and diarrhea, typically for one to three days. Norovirus is the leading cause of such stomach illnesses in the US.
"The decision to close is the right move," Mesa County Public Health Executive Director Jeff Kuhr said in a statement. "Past experience with these types of viruses tell us having a period of time away from close person-to-person contact can be instrumental in these illnesses running their course."
[...] Kuhr told The New York Times that many sick students had been vomiting on the floors of classrooms and hallways, unable to make it to trash cans or bathrooms in time.
[...] Norovirus victims can spew billions of infectious viral particles in their vomit and feces. Just a few can cause a new infection. Kuhr estimated that everything within a 25-foot radius of a puking was likely contaminated.
The Associated Press reported that some school custodians also fell ill, slowing the disinfection process.
Having personally suffered through a bout of this, I can attest to how nasty it is.
At one point, I seriously considered calling an ambulance! The large amount of fluid coming out in the vomit and the very runny diarrhea threatened dehydration. On the other hand, I could not seem to hold it together for the 10 minutes it would take to drive myself to the hospital. I decided to give it another 30 minutes and I was fortunate that the symptoms abated sufficiently that no hospital visit was ultimately needed.
My suspicion was I got it from some potato salad served at a pot-luck super bowl party. With the holiday season approaching, please be extra careful, follow proper food handling practices, and wash your hands frequently!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday November 25 2019, @03:19PM
Who wants chowder? [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 25 2019, @03:26PM (16 children)
That means keep it over 140 degrees F, or keep it below 40 degrees F. You're allowed 3 hours within that 100 degree range. When in doubt, throw it out. No, you can't cook it the night before, and leave it on the counter. You can't cook it, put it in the car, and drive four hours to Grandma's house.
Martyb mentions potato salad. ANYTHING with mayonnaise in it is suspect. Don't use that bottle of mayo that's been in the fridge for three weeks - get a new jar!
It only takes one small error in judgement to ruin everybody's holiday!!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @03:40PM (3 children)
After the illegals have used the lettuce for toilet paper in the field, what are you going to do with that?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 25 2019, @04:20PM (2 children)
Don't eat lettuce, dummy!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EvilSS on Monday November 25 2019, @05:36PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @01:05AM
Pretty sure lettuce was what got me in Seoul. From the fancy Lotte hotel which claimed that every thing was washed in purified water.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Monday November 25 2019, @07:25PM (1 child)
Considering mayo is shelf-stable before you open it, maybe it depends on the type of mayo [cnbc.com].
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 25 2019, @07:56PM
I'm familiar with the claim that mayo is safer than many people think. Maybe the real problem with mayo is, that it is often used in dishes containing other foods that are hard to control.
https://healthfully.com/173472-mayonnaise-food-poisoning.html [healthfully.com]
Ham and chicken are singled out, but potato salad, macaroni salad, and other dishes containing mayo are often the sources of food poisoning.
Just my opinion, but it's best to be a little extra careful with any dish that contains mayo. Maybe the mayo isn't the culprit, but those dishes remain notorious for spreading food borne illnesses.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 26 2019, @12:09AM (8 children)
Helps with bacterial contamination, does provide no guarantees for viruses. E.g. enterovirus exposed to 80C (>140F) still lets the virus potentially active [nih.gov]
In the case of norovirus, proper food handling practices amounts for very little, as it spreads airborne. BTW, no viruses will multiply in your food - they need living cells
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 26 2019, @02:37AM (7 children)
Or through ingestion. Proper food handling (most particularly here, washing hands with soap and water - hand sanitizer gels don't cut it) won't on its own eliminate norovirus spread, but it can slow it.
My company had hideous problems with norovirus one season about 5-10 years back. They instituted hard-core quarantine rules in the employee dorms - if you exhibit any "gastrointestinal" symptoms, you're confined to your room until three days after the symptoms abate and some other measures (such as removing any food/condiments from restaurants that could be handled by the public and enforcing proper food handling) to reverse the outbreak even though it continued to hit outside areas pretty hard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @03:04AM (6 children)
> quarantine rules in the employee dorms
What sort of company has employee dorms?? I remember seeing them at Hyundai in Ulsan, but that was a real company town, everything was Hyundai...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 26 2019, @06:45AM (4 children)
Alpine resort at the bottom of a dormant volcano crater?
You know, where access by land is blocked for 6 month every year, or something like that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @07:01AM (3 children)
Is "alpine resort" some sort of code for evil organization lair?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @07:55AM
Not really. It's just code for "You're not welcome here, poor kid, unless you're looking for a job, in which case you should have seen me in the office."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @11:08AM
Yellowsnow. Or Yellow Kidney Stone. Or somewhere there.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 26 2019, @03:08PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 26 2019, @03:12PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @06:01AM
I don't want to step on your point, but it is 2 hours [foodsafety.gov] outside of the fridge, in order to factor in the time of recooling. I am over cautious and usually go by the Rule of Two, two months in the freezer, two days in the fridge, two hours on the counter but the actual times are here [foodsafety.gov]. It is also a good idea to go through your pantry and check all the dates sometime. I would also recommend reading through the food safety website, as they have some good tips that have kept me healthy when other family members fell ill. Sure they make fun of you at the time, but when everyone else in the family group, including your spouse, are all "under the weather" from Saturday until Monday (except dad who was sicker longer thanks to eating leftovers on Friday).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @05:06PM (6 children)
Legal weed *and* GI viruses? I'm moving to Colorado!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @05:13PM (5 children)
That's a better choice than GayFrancisco, where you have homeless people sleeping in open sewers with syringes scattered among them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @05:24PM (4 children)
There's nothing wrong with San Francisco. I've visited there a bunch, especially when my brother lived out there.
But I live in the place so nice they named it twice -- and that's pretty darn nice!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @05:56PM (3 children)
When was the last time you went to San Francisco?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @06:33PM (2 children)
Few weeks ago. They've got problems, but nothing like you bigots with an axe to grind. Homeless sleeping in gutters with needles all around, lol. Did you read some police report and extraploate that to apply to every situation ever? Fox news rots yer brain man.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday November 25 2019, @06:48PM
Hey, don't encourage him. There's too many tourists already. (Yeah, that's not what the hotels think, but their spokesmen live elsewhere.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @08:06PM
https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/SF-tourist-industry-struggles-to-explain-street-12534954.php [sfchronicle.com]
https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Cable-cars-climb-halfway-to-the-stars-but-SF-12372796.php [sfchronicle.com]
https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Showing-tourists-the-prime-of-SF-along-with-12354476.php [sfchronicle.com]
So, how do you respond to columnists who live in SF, telling it like it is? SF has serious problems, and calling people who notice those problems "bigots" isn't doing anything to solve them.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @09:47PM (3 children)
I just got back from a sandwich place where a person made my sandwich with gloves, the same person took my cash with the same gloves, and then he continued touching food with those gloves. I hate that stupid people get hired at these types of places. They need to take better care of the health of their customers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @01:11AM
If it starts an outbreak they will blame it on you...for using cash instead of a touchless method of payment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @06:26AM
Just report them to your food inspector or leave an anonymous tip on the franchise website. Both of those take food safety seriously, albeit for different reasons.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 26 2019, @11:16AM
Heh, smart move. I mean, look, he is protected from money borne diseases - so he is less likely to take a sick leave - and cuts the operating costs by using a lower number of gloves - those are just govt overreach and bureaucratic red tape.
(large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @02:02AM (1 child)
I got nailed with something in March I thought for sure it was going to do me in.
The works:. Every system got nailed. Diarrhea, could not eat, lung congestion with with voluminous pungent yellow expectorate. Really pungent pee.
Dry mouth and throat, to the point of being painful.
Profuse night sweating. To the point the mattress was soaked. And everything leaving me had that same foul, putrid, musty stench, as if I had musty sewage for blood.
And it left some damage that seems permanent now: atrial fibrillation.
I gave away a lot of stuff, like drawers of vacuum tubes, some very exotic, and test equipment, as I found the idea of it in the landfill to be reprehensible.
A mistake I made was taking NyQuil. That stuff dried up the mucous membranes, just like it's supposed to, but in this instance, that was not what I needed at all.
Breathing was painful and so dry.
I do not know how I made it out of that one. I am 70 years old, and thought I had already experienced every cold and flu out there.
I post this not to gross everyone out but to post an experience for comparison to anything you may run across.
Yes, I saw the doctor. They ran lots of tests. They don't know what it was. But I did mostly get over it, over several months!
I will never forget that musty stench.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @12:16PM
march is too cold for surfing at fukushima beach ...