progression of a flu-like virus

For what i experienced, it started with 2 people i new becoming ill with this virus inVirginia, while another, who lived in my house visited.
The last day of the visit, the person visiting became ill, but returned home never the less.
3 days later, it was diagnosed as Bronchitis, but was negative for our current Flu tests.
A neighbor who we talk to became sick, her and her baby.  Again the tests were negative for flu, but came back with pnuemonia for her.  the baby recovered rapidly.
2 more days and the other person in our house became ill.  The onset was so rapid that he cooked dinner feeling fine, but by 9:30 was coughing and sneezing, by morning his voice was gone.
He also had bronchitis.
I became sick 3 days later, but began anti viral therapy immediately and it did not develop into any thing more.
The husband of the neighbor and a friend who comes and visits often at our house. became sick yesterday.
She started anti-viral theraphy and is recovering rapidly, he did not and is getting worse.
This has all the markings of an influenza, but is not showing up on tests.
It is rapid and as a virus, supresses our immune system and so secondary bacterial infections are common.
I did everything i could at the house to minimize my exposure, but it just was not enough.

pool closures

i have always been a big supported of the CDC - they seem to keep public health in the forefront, even when it is politically unpopular.
Of course i am writing today because i am questioning something.
In the fresh, treated recreational water section - there is a little part talking about closing a pool for only 20 minutes after raising the free chlorine level to 2 when a "formed" stool is found.
The assumption is that a formed stoll has not 1) started to dissolve by the time it is found and 2) only has E. coli as the creature to be concerned with.
Again the assumption is that a "formed" stool means that the person was not sick and e. coli is all that has to be worried about.
I have to say that i am not convinced that these assumptions can be made and that any fecal event should be treated the same - 13 hour closure with free chlorine being raised to over 3 ppm. (they say 12.75 hours, but i am not splitting hairs with 15 minutes).

foreboding

The winter was very mild and the Spring was very real and long lasting,
but we are missing something,
something very important -
The Spring rain that causes some discomfort in its copious quantity.
It has been very dry in Stamford.
We are on a dry weather alert and when beaches open up, they will be closed on only 1/2 inch of rain,
if we get that much,
Even if we get the rain predicted for Sunday, we are low and expect problems with restricted watering and wells going dry.
The surprise is that the test results for the wells below the parkway are still coming back positive, so the dryness may not be a factor.
Ticks will not like this tho - they do not like dry and despite the warm weather, we have not had that many submissions for testing...

what if

you have doen everything correctly and things still come out wrong?
This is something every person dealing with food or pools comes to face at some point...

The Restaurant has to do with fish - a restaurant gets their fish and treats it correctly, keeping it cold before cooking and there is no smell.
But when it was first caught, the fisherman did not do what was right and the fish built up high levels of Histamines.
The restaurant was a good one, but numerous people became ill with what is called scobosis and soon people would not go back and the restaurant closed.
Was it the restaurants fault - no, but "things" happened anyway.
A pool follows all the protocals for a solid fecal accident, but a patron complained and inspection was done.
water was analyzed - levels of free chlorine and pH were perfect, but bacteria showed in the test.  Why?  did the poop cause this?
Probably not.  Everything was at a level there should have been no bacteria, but 2 subsiquent tests showed it still present.  Something may have crawled in to the filter and that would not been evident to any one - exceopt the test.  They were shut down till everything was taken apart and cleaned.
The leson is - you never know everything.