One of my earliest memory of childhood was the Yosemite National Park. I remembered the park was a place of beauty within California’s numerous of mountain ranges, full of sequoia trees, mountains, and clean water, refreshing air, and clear blue skies. The park was home to one of the popular tourist attraction places in America. I remembered asking my parents how such a beautiful place could exist. The response was the park was maintained with the cost of three to twelve billion dollars.
I was surprised on how expensive the park could be. Thereby, I came to innocently think the park would possess high quality services with professional and trained staffs, be uncontaminated by human’s intervention with food and drinks, and allow a place for multiple people to safely interact with each other. But recently, the norovirus outbreak at Yosemite, as reported by CNN, had caused 170 people to get sick.
Norovirus is known to cause diarrhea, vomiting, and the stomach flu. The factors leading to such a notorious illness was the lack of sanitary care from the companies managing the tourists coming to the park. The virus spread through contact of contaminated food, objects, drinks, and infected people. I had wondered how such a virus could suddenly infect the tourists so quickly.
Perhaps there were other contributing factors that caused the outbreak that were not covered by the media. Because there needed to be a scapegoat to place the blame within the outbreak in Yosemite National Park, the media highly published and pointed the blame of the outbreak to a Philadelphia-based food service company called the Aramark who took over the Ahwahnee Hotel. The company received a lot of complaints from prior customers for the lack of hygiene care handled by the staff members or cleaners. Victims of the norovirus have reported about the inhalation of the smell from mouse feces and urine. The infestation of mice could be caused by the deteriorating services of the workers and cleaners. A dirty bed sheet, dirty toilet seat, and dirty bathtub could cause infection of the virus. Victims had also complained of the food and drink served within the hotel. The food were said to have been contaminated by the workers. As a fighter of hygiene, I was saddened to hear such deteriorating service in a business that could give people the incentives to earn a lot of money to work harder.
In addition to offering shelter, food, and drinks, the hotel also provided shuttle service to the Yosemite Park. Most likely, the seatings of the shuttle were not cleaned as often within a week of service. Thereby, the exposure of the contaminated seatings for each victim helped cause the spread of norovirus. If the virus could be transmitted through infected items, one person could contact another person and spread the virus even further outside Yosemite National Park. One of the recommendations I suggest would be to wipe your seats before sitting on any type of public transportation. I would also need to note that it is also very important to wash your hands with soap and water for around one to two minutes to prevent the spread of any lingering bacteria or pathogens on your hand. Even in a public place like Yosemite National Park, it is important to be aware of the sanitary conditions within the food stalls: whether the workers washed their hands before touching the food or if the workers wore gloves when dealing with food. The incident had been an unfortunate experience for the victims who wanted the full experience of relaxation and enjoyment to the park. I was very saddened that the park I enjoyed as a young child could reach such a tragic state. There would need to be more awareness on the sanitary conditions provided in any type of services for consumers and providers. There should also need to be more regulations from the providers on the quality of service their workers provided such as daily check-ups on the cleanliness predisposition of the hotel.
by Naive Health Lady Lu January 17, 2020
Naive Healthy Lady Lu 