I don’t watch American Idol; I saw enough of Steven Tyler performing half-time at the Super Bowl. But I pay attention when my health-type friends tell me, the contestants on American Idol this week suffered from Idol Flu, with many gratuitous vomit shots, lots of hugging and no handwashing in sight.

Amy (Tent Girl) Brumfield earned a new nickname -- Patient Zero. She brought a stomach bug to Hollywood with her, and, soon, practically every group has to carry their own plastic bag with them, just in case somebody loses their dinner.

A few of the more promising singers -- Johnny Keyser, David Leathers Jr. and Deandre Brackensick -- looked like they've got their acts together. But this Group Night show featured as much drama, and as much retching, as it did actual singing.

Maybe it was norovirus; maybe the barfing contestants were forced to watch their own show.

Cleaning up vomit promptly is crucial to containing the spread of bugs like norovirus as 300 staff and students at a Jesuit high school in San Francisco discovered Wednesday.

The outbreak at Saint Ignatius College Preparatory school, initially believed to have been caused by a virus, sent a handful of the sickened students to hospital emergency rooms for treatment of dehydration, principal Patrick Ruff said.

School spokesman Paul Totah said roughly 300 pupils in all, out of the school's 1,360-member student body, were believed to have been affected in some way.

Extra maintenance staff were brought in to scour the entire school with a bleach-based solution, and the process will be repeated on Thursday, Ruff said.

The school consulted with San Francisco health inspectors, who visited the school Wednesday and ruled out cafeteria food or waterborne sources for the outbreak, he said. Further testing is needed to determine whether norovirus, a common cause of gastroenteritis, was the culprit.

Dr. Tomas Aragon, San Francisco's chief medical officer, said the outbreak may have originated from a single infected student who got sick in an often-used doorway.

"A student vomited on central doors, on the rods that open these big doors. Then the bell rang and a lot of students went through that door."

Aragon said the norovirus can survive on surfaces for days and is highly contagious.

This is sounding a lot less like norovirus.

Elizabeth Church of Toronto’s Globe and Mail reports that for the fifth time in less than a week, a Canadian airline is reporting several ill passengers on a flight returning from the vacation destination of Holguin in Cuba.

Although many travellers on each flight reported staying at the same resorts, at least four resorts have been identified amongst the travellers onboard the first four affected flights, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

But those resorts could have the same food suppliers; and at least one commenter to barfblog.com said he or she was tested upon arriving in Canada and tested positive for salmonella.

Michelle Larabie said she got sick on a plane returning to Toronto from Holguin on Jan. 13, a week earlier than the other flights. She said she began feeling nauseous while in the air, and her sickness and diarrhea lasted nearly a week.

Barf happens, and the newly converted are quick to cite lessons learned, but the challenge remains – how to get people to pay attention before the outbreak happens?

The Vancouver Sun reports the final two dozen university conference delegates left Victoria on Tuesday after days of battling a painful norovirus outbreak that is believed to have infected about 75 people.

About 370 delegates arrived in the city for a national Canadian University Press conference on Jan. 11.

The journalism convention quickly made national headlines on Sunday morning after the virus rapidly spread throughout the Harbour Towers Hotel and Suites where they all stayed.

Those who were not infected — and some who were — made their way home Sunday, while the rest stayed an extra night or two waiting for their symptoms of vomiting, severe stomach pains and diarrhea to pass.

A shuttle bus took about 13 delegates to the Victoria Airport Tuesday morning with another five or six following them in the afternoon, according to university press staff.

Some students were reporting getting sick during their travels home and some even after they arrived. But with the worst behind them, delegates got back to classes and work.

“If anything, this entire conference, this entire situation, has been a lesson for us in terms of crisis communication,” said Emma Godmere, the CUP national bureau chief, who became a co-ordinator of all communication as information was sent out via Twitter.