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RNC 2016: Republican convention staffers struck down with norovirus

At least a dozen California GOP staffers began showing symptoms over the weekend and have been quarantined in their hotel rooms

Tim Walker
Cleveland
Tuesday 19 July 2016 21:26 BST
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A California delegate dancing on the floor of the GOP convention in Cleveland, before news broke that some of his colleagues had been struck down with the diarrhoea-inducing bug
A California delegate dancing on the floor of the GOP convention in Cleveland, before news broke that some of his colleagues had been struck down with the diarrhoea-inducing bug

Several staffers at the Republican convention in Cleveland have been feeling rather queasy – and not because of Rudy Giuliani’s speech. At least a dozen staff members for the California GOP delegation have been quarantined in their hotel rooms after falling ill from a contagious norovirus, state officials said on Tuesday.

So far, none of the Golden State’s 550 delegates have contracted the illness, which “looks like norovirus”, Erie County Health Commissioner Pete Schade told the Los Angeles Times. Mr Schade’s team had reportedly collected fecal samples from the unwell staffers to be tested.

Apparently brought to Cleveland from California, the virus broke out over the weekend at the African-themed Kalahari Resort near Sandusky, Ohio – some 60 miles from Cleveland – where the delegation is being accommodated during the convention.

The virus spreads via the so-called “fecal-oral” route, and California delegates were warned that if they began to suffer any symptoms, they should stop shaking hands or sharing food. Those symptoms include explosive diarrhoea and vomiting. In an email to delegates seen by the Sacramento Bee, the California GOP’s executive director Cynthia Bryant said, simply, “You’ll know if you have it.”

Known as the “cruise-ship” virus, the bug often breaks out in crowded environments such as old people’s homes and weddings. But who knew a political convention could make people sick?

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