Health officials say H1N1 infected DOMAINfest attendees and evaluates role of social media in responding to outbreak.
We go to domain conferences. Health officials go to Centers for Disease Control conferences.
You can imagine these events as rather dull. But last week officials from Los Angeles got to spice things up a bit as they discussed the illness outbreak after the DOMAINfest conference in February at the Playboy Mansion. They managed to throw in another buzz word: social media.
Their conclusions:
-the hot tub at the mansion was the source of legionella bacteria at the conference
-social media helped to get the word out and track the illness
-3 people tested positive for H1N1
-The relative risk for illness for people who attended the party was 3.8x of not attending the party
-they could not confirm a single case of legionellosis among attendees
Their presentation to fellow health officials was titled “Role of Social Media in Investigating an Outbreak: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”
The health officials said they used blogs, twitter, Facebook, and an online survey to assess symptoms and figure out the timing.
439 people responded to the official survey and 123 met the “case definition” for the illness.
Although online tools helped, the health officials noted that they may have also caused “recall” amongst attendees. I believe this means it may have induced people to think they were sick or had certain symptoms even though they didn’t.
John Berryhill says
Oh the irony… A simple vaccination would have prevented coming down with an illness at a Fundraiser for Jenny McCarthy’s anti-vaccination nonsense.
Andrew Rosener says
So now they are saying we all had swine flu – NOT legionellosis ???
Sharon Hayes says
I received my written report a couple weeks ago from the tests CDC/San Diego/LA County Health ran. Official: it was inconclusive for legionellosis. Not negative but inconclusive. The problem with testing was that by the time the CDC & LA County Health got involved, most of us who had been sickest had likely been on antibiotics. The tests run on me were 15 days after the event and 8-9 days after starting antibiotics. They were not able to take blood tests (difficulty getting vein) which would have been most reliable.
Domainer Extraordinaire says
Sharon Hayes did you get in the hot tub?
Sharon Hayes says
No. I don’t even recall seeing it.
Karen Bernstein says
Andrew, do you mean the hot tub in the Grotto?
Andrew Allemann says
Karen, I imagine that’s what they’re talking about.