Norovirus hits land

[Tetigustas shadowson]

Quarantined!
How can that be? This town isn’t big enough to have a huge outbreak of a strange Ocean voyager’s bug!
What’s next a city wide quarantine, where did this mysterious virus come from?
Speculation 'What government lab' who’s Bio Weapon got loose on the cruise ships?
If its coming out both ends then your in deep… O_o

STORY:
Sunday, April 20, 2008
last updated at 4/20/2008 - 2:55 pm
Norovirus hits Heritage Place staff and residents
By Phil Hermanek | Peninsula Clarion
Alaska epidemiologists on Friday identified a mysterious illness affecting staff and residents at Heritage Place in Soldotna as norovirus.

As of Friday morning, 50 people at Heritage Place had reported symptoms of the highly contagious virus, which causes acute gastroenteritis in humans.

Two employees at Central Peninsula Hospital also reported symptoms of the virus, according to spokesperson Kris Eriksen. She said she was not aware of any in-patients at the hospital with the virus and had not received reports of people being treated for the virus at the Emergency Department.

The onset of the illness, which brings stomach pain, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, was April 8 at Heritage Place, and it continued to spread this past week. The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services epidemiology section was called in to help identify the illness.

Eriksen said the best method for preventing the spread of the virus is frequent hand washing. She also said people cleaning up after those infected with the virus should take steps to avoid coming into contact with either feces or vomitus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site says countertops and other hard surfaces should be cleaned with chlorine bleach or a chlorine-based disinfectant to prevent spread of the disease. People cleaning heavily contaminated areas should wear gloves and surgical masks.

The incubation period for norovirus-associated gastroenteritis is 12 to 48 hours and symptoms usually last 24 to 60 hours. Dehydration is the most common complication and may require replacing fluids intravenously.

Heritage Place has placed restrictions on visitation and families are asked to call 262-2545 for any updates or if they have concerns.

The hospital is not restricting visitors, but they are asked to wash their hands when entering or leaving patient areas.

Heritage Place and CPH employees with symptoms are being asked to not return to work and to minimize public contact until 48 hours after their last bout of diarrhea.

Eriksen said state epidemiologists were complimentary of steps taken early on at Heritage Place to isolate and stop the spread of the virus.

http://www.peninsulaclarion.com/stories ... 1003.shtml

[Devari]

Norwalk Virus appears all over the place, especially in Hospitals... I fail to see what that has to do with a "bio weapon"...

[Tetigustas shadowson]

Just the little paranoid inside us all, if it isn’t a tampered with virus then what is its origin?
It first shows up on the cruise ships as an uncontrollable unknown bug, and now its everywhere?
WoW apparently you’re not going to use our airport either it’s closed to foreign traffic, silly I know but what is next blow a crater in the highway
I mean what the hell man?

[windhound]

I think your tinfoil hat is on a little too tight

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norovirus

Norovirus, an RNA virus of the Caliciviridae taxonomic family, causes approximately 90% of epidemic non-bacterial outbreaks of gastroenteritis around the world,[1][2] and is responsible for 50% of all foodborne outbreaks of gastroenteritis in the US.[3] Norovirus affects people of all ages. The viruses are transmitted by faecally contaminated food or water and by person-to-person contact.[4]

So it spreads via contaiminated food, water, and people.
Cruise ships are massive amounts of people crammed into a fairly small, self-contained space... sharing a common food and water supply. Not a shocker.
It happens in hospitals too, for the same reason. Plus hospital people can already be ill and more susceptible

There are 1478 articles about it on PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez if you want to do some reading. Its not exactly an obscure disease.

[Tetigustas shadowson]

I traded my tinfoil hat in for a Teflon frying pan, the handle holds onto the hat nail better and doesn’t tear when I am in a hurry to leave, like when the FBI comes for coffee.

The many viruses and diseases that have been defined in the last several decades is frightening, what are we to do when all the teenage girls have some childhood virus, that kills old guys who try to pick them up.
I will have to trade in my van in for a sedan or a coup maybe a cauterizer for my perma-warts!
Oh gods give me an old fashioned girl with an old fashioned STI.

So if you’re whole family is down with it, who is at work paying the doctors bill?
It’s not covered in any insurance that I know of, it’s considered a social affliction that could be prevented.

[windhound]

I think I found your van Tetigustas




Its like anything else, really. If you get it, you take sick days. If you dont take sick days you run the very real risk of infected everyone in your building...

Do most insurances cover a bad cold? That's infectious too and can lay you out for a day or two

[The Beatles]

I didn't read the rest of this thread, but that image is still making me laugh out loud. Where do you find 'em, windy?

[Freenhult]

XD No kidding. Thats good stuff.

[Gen. Volkov]

The many viruses and diseases that have been defined in the last several decades is frightening

Why? We are getting better at diagnosing and detecting them. Also, as we spread out over the planet, new things are going to pop out at us. That said, this is not a new virus or newly identified one by any stretch of the imagination. It was first identified in 1968, 40 years ago now.

[windhound]

I didn't read the rest of this thread, but that image is still making me laugh out loud. Where do you find 'em, windy?

Apparently a good portion of this stuff leaks off 4Chan... which is a rather scary place I dont go.
I pickup the stuff that escapes, which tends to be the amusing bits rather than the disturbing bits... most of it between another rather large forum and digg.