Mass Chaos, Confusion, and Cholera

http://www.chineseye.com/path-users-...id=1406 .html

It started at a dinner party in Danzhou. Someone's wedding. Going
back to the laojia. Going down to the countryside. The standards of
hygeine aren't so great out there. Like all Chinese they boil the
water they drink but they don't wash their dishes in hot water. They
don't use bleach. And although the exact source isn't being reported,
apparently they didn't use the UV disinfecting cabinet. Or maybe
someone didn't wash their hands after they went to the bathroom.
Who knows?

Over a period of nine days over 300 people in Danzhou City became ill.

And then, with the only death being attributed to a congenital heart
problem that was exacerbated by the disease it looked like it was
over. The Health Department made the announcements and everything was
fine.
For about 12 hours.

It is as yet unconfirmed whether or not the cases at Hainan University
in Haikou are or are not connected to the outbreak in Danzhou.
Cholera is confirmed for seven students while another seventy students
with diarrhea are under observation. Three of the five dining halls
are closed and the campus is under quarantine.
No one in.
No one out.

Somehow we managed to get two of our interns out on Monday afternoon.
I'm not entirely sure what was done. I know that phone calls were
made. Eventually, after quite a bit of runaround permission was
granted. From a Health Department point of view this is not good
practice. From a Health Department point of view permission should
not have been granted. But permission was granted. We got them
out.
Later on that day they went out to a meal with us later in the day and
ate off of common dishes using normal chopsticks which went in the
wash water with all the other dishes that restaurant used. If they
had been carriers we could have very easily been vectors for spreading
disease.

That was Monday. Things were more relaxed on Monday.

By Tuesday the Health Department people were doing a much better job
of enforcing the quarantine. Unlike what happened during SARS where
many of the campuses were closed down and barricaded out of a
theoretical desire to keep the students safe but mostly to control
them, Hainan University is being quarantined to keep the general
population safe. Cholera is a nasty disease and it can be pretty
communicable if you aren't very very very careful about hand washing
and dish washing and water boiling.
Chinese do the water boiling but they aren't so good about the hand
washing (with soap) or the dish washing (with bleach).

Our interns can't get out.
And right now, we can't get them out either.

It's not just the interns. All of our liaisons, all of our
translators, and perhaps ninety percent of our bilingual staff are at
Hainan University and they can't get out.

Including the athletes, the team staff, the coms, the media, the
special guests and the like we've got nearly three hundred foreigners
arriving in four days.
Four days.
That's not a lot of time.
Ninety six hours.
And our bilingual staff is stuck on the wrong side of a quarantine.

This is going to be interesting.

-M

On Tue, 4 Nov 2008 21:13:05 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

Chinese do the water boiling but they aren't so good about the hand
washing (with soap) or the dish washing (with bleach).

Americans are worse on all of these, but since there's less disease
around and most of our water is potable, it's nowhwere near as
bad.....

In article ,
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

On Tue, 4 Nov 2008 21:13:05 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

Chinese do the water boiling but they aren't so good about the hand
washing (with soap) or the dish washing (with bleach).

Americans are worse on all of these, but since there's less disease
around and most of our water is potable, it's nowhwere near as
bad.....

Really? Because most of the automatic dishwasher detergents I've used
included bleach. I'm a bit clumsy, and I lost a few items of clothing to
the gel detergent I used to use.

Automatic dishwashers aren't quite universal in the US, but they're
awfully common.

But as JT notes, cholera is a disease of non-potable water first, and
communicability second.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

On Nov 5, 2:30*pm, Ryan Cousineau wrote:
In article ,
*John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

On Tue, 4 Nov 2008 21:13:05 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

Chinese do the water boiling but they aren't so good about the hand
washing (with soap) or the dish washing (with bleach).

Americans are worse on all of these, but since there's less disease
around and most of our water is potable, it's nowhwere near as
bad.....

Really? Because most of the automatic dishwasher detergents I've used
included bleach. I'm a bit clumsy, and I lost a few items of clothing to
the gel detergent I used to use.

Automatic dishwashers aren't quite universal in the US, but they're
awfully common.

But as JT notes, cholera is a disease of non-potable water first, and
communicability second.

It's actually nowhere near as bad as it would be someplace where they
are used to potable water.

Although not true more often than not, the default assumption here is
that the water isn't safe to drink without boiling
it first.

In article
,
Marian wrote:

On Nov 5, 2:30*pm, Ryan Cousineau wrote:
In article ,
*John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

On Tue, 4 Nov 2008 21:13:05 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

Chinese do the water boiling but they aren't so good about the hand
washing (with soap) or the dish washing (with bleach).

Americans are worse on all of these, but since there's less disease
around and most of our water is potable, it's nowhwere near as
bad.....

Really? Because most of the automatic dishwasher detergents I've used
included bleach. I'm a bit clumsy, and I lost a few items of clothing to
the gel detergent I used to use.

Automatic dishwashers aren't quite universal in the US, but they're
awfully common.

But as JT notes, cholera is a disease of non-potable water first, and
communicability second.

It's actually nowhere near as bad as it would be someplace where they
are used to potable water.

Although not true more often than not, the default assumption here is
that the water isn't safe to drink without boiling
it first.

There's some truth in that:

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

E.coli, not cholera, but half of a town of 5000 was afflicted; at least
7 died.

the LIVEDRUNK Foundation for Healthy Living would like to remind you
that cholera cannot live in beer.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

On Nov 5, 4:54*am, Ryan Cousineau wrote:

There's some truth in that:

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

E.coli, not cholera, but half of a town of 5000 was afflicted; at least
7 died.

the LIVEDRUNK Foundation for Healthy Living would like to remind you
that cholera cannot live in beer.

If the person in charge of the Walkerton water supply hadn't been
drinking beer at the office instead of water, this might not have
happened.

Brian Huntley wrote:
On Nov 5, 4:54 am, Ryan Cousineau wrote:

There's some truth in that:

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

E.coli, not cholera, but half of a town of 5000 was afflicted; at least
7 died.

the LIVEDRUNK Foundation for Healthy Living would like to remind you
that cholera cannot live in beer.

If the person in charge of the Walkerton water supply hadn't been
drinking beer at the office instead of water, this might not have
happened.

Sure, that's right. Blame the drunk.

Brian Huntley wrote:
On Nov 5, 4:54 am, Ryan Cousineau wrote:

There's some truth in that:

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

E.coli, not cholera, but half of a town of 5000 was afflicted; at least
7 died.

the LIVEDRUNK Foundation for Healthy Living would like to remind you
that cholera cannot live in beer.

If the person in charge of the Walkerton water supply hadn't been
drinking beer at the office instead of water, this might not have
happened.

No, his incompetence (and that of his brother--Walkerton was a family
affair) ran much deeper than a few beers.

Ryan Cousineau wrote:

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

E.coli, not cholera, but half of a town of 5000 was afflicted; at
least 7 died.

On a severity scale where E. coli is a 4 and Y. pestis is a 9, V. comma is
about 23.

Robert Chung wrote:
Ryan Cousineau wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_Tragedy

E.coli, not cholera, but half of a town of 5000 was afflicted; at
least 7 died.

On a severity scale where E. coli is a 4 and Y. pestis is a 9, V. comma is
about 23.

Dumas,

He survived.