UnNews:Whoopi infects 16 at Boston hospital
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This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation. |
3 November 2006
BAHST'N, Mass. - At least one young patient and 15 staff members at Children's Discount Hospital Boston have been diagnosed with exposure to Whoopi, the hospital and public health authorities reported yesterday, marking the second time in two months that a Massachusetts hospital has faced an outbreak of the infectious disease.
Sixty other staff members at Children's have symptoms of the illness, caused by accidental exposure to Whoopi, and are undergoing blood tests to determine whether they have the condition, said Dr. Anita Scanfuld, top disease tracker at the Boston Public Health Commission.
Symptoms arise when exposed to the potentially fatal unfunniness of Whoopi Goldberg, and include choking, dizziness, nausea, anal leakage, and a desire to flee.
Hospital workers were sent home until they can finish a five-day course of the antibiotic azithromycin, said Dr. Thomas Sandora , an epidemiologist at Children's.
Letters have been sent to the parents of about 1,000 patients who may have come into contact with either Whoopi, or potentially infectious staff members, providing information about the disease and directions on what to do if symptoms appear, Sandora said.
"Many of those patients probably weren't exposed, but we're taking a very cautious approach," Sandora said.
It appeared last night that Children's did not follow the law in alerting local health authorities in a timely fashion that the infectious Goldberg had visited the hospital in September.