US restaurant case demonstrates how virus spreads

The case demonstrates how easily and quickly a virus -- in this case a norovirus -- can spread and shows how standard cleaning does a poor job of eliminating viruses.

One of the workers vomited into a trash can and then continued preparing food, including an appetizer platter. Fully a third of the people who ate there became ill that day, Brenda Brennan and Susan Bohm of the Michigan Department of Health reported.

They did not identify the restaurant, which they said was in Eaton County in south-central Michigan.

"This report summarizes the findings of the outbreak investigation, which determined that at least 364 restaurant patrons had become ill," they wrote in the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention`s weekly report on death and disease.