John D. Mitchell's Blog

JavaOne Day 4: Urgent Public Health Warning: Stomach Flu

The JavaOne conference team has been notified by the San Francisco Department of Public Health about an identified outbreak of a virus in the San Francisco area. Testing is still underway to identify the specific virus in question, but they believe it to be the Norovirus, a common cause of the "stomach flu", which can cause temporary flu-like symptoms for up to 48 hours. Part of the San Francisco area impacted includes the Moscone Center, the site of the JavaOne conference which is being held this week. We are working with the appropriate San Francisco Department of Public Health and Moscone representatives to mitigate the impact this will have on the conference and steps are being taken overnight to disinfect the facility. We have not received any indication that the show should end early, so will have the full schedule of events on Friday as planned. We hope to see you then.

Please see the attached notification from the Department of Public Health.

For further information, as well as Frequently Asked Questions related to the Norovirus, please visit the San Francisco Department of Public Health website at http://sfcdcp.org/norovirus.cfm

Comments

• Norovirus outbreaks are dismayingly preventable. If people would just wash their hands after going to the bathroom and wash their hands before eating, norovirus outbreaks would be far more rare.

  Posted by: dougpardee on May 09, 2008 at 09:10 AM

• Yeah. So I've found this sentence pretty funny - or maybe we should get offended? ;-)

  
  The best way to stay clear of the virus is to wash your hands and keep public areas clean. The spokesman for the city said he couldn’t speak to whether techies were less likely to practice basic hygiene than others, but he added that there’s “nothing particular about tech conferences” that cause outbreaks.

  
  From the WSJ: http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/05/09/tech-conferences-a-breeding-ground-of-disease/

  Posted by: fabriziogiudici on May 09, 2008 at 12:18 PM

• Anyway, when this morning I read the email subject, I first thought it was a WiFi / WIndows thing ;-)

  Posted by: fabriziogiudici on May 09, 2008 at 12:19 PM

• More details from this AP article.

  Posted by: johnm on May 10, 2008 at 08:58 PM

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