Breaking! 80% of public pool have major health violations, says CDC!

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report published Thursday warns that nearly 8 in 10 routine inspections of public pools turned up at least one violation of safety rules. In addition, about 1 in 8 of these inspections found problems so serious that the pool had to be closed immediately.

These disheartening statistics are based on 84,187 routine inspections of 48,632 public pools and other “aquatic venues” in Arizona, California, Florida, New York and Texas. Researchers focused on these five states because they are home to 40% of the nation’s estimated 309,000 public water play facilities.

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The CDC created the Network for Aquatic Facility Inspection and Surveillance in 2013 to keep tabs on the safety of public pools. In the preceding 35 years, 650 outbreaks originating in public pools were reported to the federal agency. The largest of these happened at an indoor water park resort in Ohio in 2007, when chlorine mixed with sweat and urine in pool water to create chemicals called chloramines. Local health authorities tallied 665 cases of eye and respiratory tract problems among resort patrons and lifeguards.

None of this is to say that Americans would be better off if they stayed away from public pools. On the contrary, swimming and other “water-based physical activity improves physical and mental health,” Michele C. Hlavsa of the CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases and her collaborators wrote in the new report.


[link to www.latimes.com]

Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 05/20/2016 11:05 AM