I am going to let you in for a little secret on the recent outbreak of the Norwalk virus in a primary school in the mid-levels. This is all hearsay, but from a very reliable source.
In the school outbreak, there were close to 300 cases, around 90 from the AM section, and the rest from the PM section. The PM section showed the first sign of outbreak, and cases were evenly distributed, at about 8 to 15 in each class.
The Health Department said that the virus was spread via vomits. The thing is, any vomit would normally get cleaned up by the cleaning ladies in no time, so infection should be well contained. The only way a large scale infection could happen via vomit is for the source kid to throw up during an assembly, right at the only entrance/exit of the assembly ground, and then the whole school walked pass it. This is unlikely, as there wasn’t any outbreak among the staff.
I have been told that, about two months before the outbreak, the school’s sewage system wasn’t working properly. The headmistress ordered that no waste paper was to go into the toilet to be flushed away, to prevent further blockage. The kids were told to put any waste paper in a bin next to the toilets. This went on until the outbreak.
Had it been SARS, the whole school would have been wiped out.
2 responses so far ↓
1 James Mok // Nov 23, 2003 at 7:21 am
But that does not explain the outbreak from schools and old-people homes in such different districts though, unless they all happened to have the same problem all within a month or so?
It is so strange that it had happened to so many different schools in such a short time. What ticks me the most is that everyone just sees it as regular cases and not checking into the possible source.
Granted that the number of cases within the season could very well be about norm as previous years for all I know, but if it had been grouped into just a few schools just like this year, it would have also been reported just as this time but we I don’t recall such reports from previous years.
2 tin_the_fatty // Nov 23, 2003 at 8:22 am
Awareness.
People are now much more aware of viral infections since SARS. In the past a few cases here and there would just pass as regular and regarded as statistical noise.
Over 1/3 of the school got infected however is an entirely different matter. The infection rate by direct injection of the virus might be about the same.