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.

I'm currently experiencing the warmest winter I've ever had - Raleigh hasn't had a day below freezing (a few nights) and I have yet to scrape my car off in the morning. Yesterday I strapped my kids into a bike trailer and rode around on a few paved trails and tomorrow it's going to be close to 70F. I love the south. But just because it's warm doesn't mean that the state will avoid norovirus - the famed winter vomiting sickness.

In 1929 Dr. John Zahorsky wrote about a history of gastrointestinal illness events, which would become norovirus. After seeing children develop sporadic cases of vomiting, supplemented by watery diarrhea each year between November and May, through over 30 years of clinical practice, he coined the term winter vomiting sickness.

Over 125 folks in Conover NC dealt with a norovirus outbreak back in mid January. According to the Raleigh News & Observer, most illnesses were linked to eating at the Harbor Inn Seafood restaurant on January 13 and 14 - but some folks got sick after eating there as recently as January 20th.

Catawba County Public Health has been working with the N.C. Division of Public Health to figure out what's been making people sick since the first cases were reported Jan. 17.

Although Public Health has not announced what food or foods caused the illness, victims have stated that the members of their party who got sick after eating at Harbor Inn were the ones who ate tossed salad.

Neither tossed salad or an exposure period of over a week would be all that surprising - tossed salad can be prepped by someone who doesn't see themselves as a food handler - and noro, especially in cooler months, is pretty stable in the environment (and could stick around to infect for weeks).
 

Last May, it was reported that 195 of the 580 people served Easter Brunch at Luciano's Cotton Club in Worcester, Mass. were struck by norovirus contracted from a sick employee, and the incident was chronicled on Yelp and a food safety site called barfblog.com.

“I would really drive home the point that they had a problem, investigated to determine what it is, and outlined a plan for what we're going to do from now on,” said Gregory Charland, founder and chief executive officer of Charland Technology, a Hubbardston-based company offering a wide range of technology services. “Organizations should use problems like that to really do some soul searching and figure out how and why this happened. The overriding concept to underline is that they are never going to have their name in the news about this again.”

(Hint, and it’s in the blog post: don’t let sick employees work, even at an Easter buffet).

Alex Barbosa, the restaurant's manager, declined comment.

That’s one anecdote in a story about on-line reviewing, which some love and some hate.

Alec Lopez dislikes consumer-driven review websites like Yelp, TripAdvisor and UrbanSpoon.

The owner of Armsby Abey in Worcester, Mass. said, “I don't read reviews often,” Mr. Lopez said. “I hate Yelp because it's an unanswered forum for people to bitch. I feel like it's a green light to voice your opinion without consequences.”

Worcester native Andrew Chandler, a 29-year-old medical student at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, had an unpleasant dining experience at Armsby Abbey, and chronicled it on Yelp.

“I was really sad to have done it, but I think that when a place isn't responsive or accommodating, people should know about it. I was hoping Armsby Abbey would read it and respond. I think it goes a long way if a manager explains what the circumstances were, and how they'll prevent the problem from happening again. Today, online reviews can make or break a customer's decision.”

In September, Harvard Business School professor Michael Luca released research that found a one-star rating increase on Yelp directly led to a 5 percent to 9 percent boost in revenue for independent restaurants, with comparable projections for independents in other industries. Despite the growing influence of Yelp and similar websites, business owners like Mr. Lopez continue to ignore — or worse, incorrectly address — negative feedback when it comes in the form of an online review.

With 61 million monthly visitors and 22 million reviews online by the end of the third quarter last year, Yelp is the most popular online review destination for everything from dentists to dieticians. Yelp's popularity is proof that consumers trust reviews written by the average Joe, and enjoy contributing their own 2 cents.

Wilson Wang, chef and owner of Baba Sushi in Worcester, said he checks online reviews of his restaurant “all the time,” monitoring what diners like — and don't like.

Mr. Wang, whose customers' reviews currently rank Baba Sushi 4.5 out of 5 stars on Yelp.com, said he doesn't respond personally to people's comments but rather sees such reviews “as a mirror” to reveal what could be done better. “We are on the high level and we are really proud,” he said last week.

Yelp and websites like it open the door for independent businesses with limited marketing budgets, giving them an opportunity to advertise through old-fashioned word of mouth in a high-tech world. They offer a safety net to consumers who, with a few keystrokes, can be reassured that trying something new — rather than falling back on the reliability of a chain — won't be a waste of their money.

“Every time I've given a negative review and gotten some sort of constructive, non-judgmental response, I've made it a point to go back to whatever business it was and give them a clean slate,” said Amy Jamieson, a 42-year-old Yelp user and homemaker from Worcester. “If they're willing to try again, so am I.”

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.