I'm glad that they said something as well. I don't think anyone ever said that it should be kept quiet. I disagreed with some of the language originally used, as did some others, but not the 'heart' of the message.
My point in posting here wasn't to rehash an old dispute, and I hope we can avoid that, but I felt it was unfair to imply that because the rumors turned out to be true they were justified... Notice the language used here, most likely coming directly from medical professionals; 'viral outbreak...' Not 'SEVERE norovirus outbreak.' Kudos to you, or whoever it was, for guessing norovirus, but at the time it was posted it was not a confirmed fact.
You may say there's no harm in spreading the information, right or wrong, but I think accuracy matters. Given your logic we should just tell everyone that there is
always a SEVERE norovirus outbreak on the AT, since that would make them more cautious with sanitation... Right? Maybe we should tell them that there are
always murderers on the trail too? They'd certainly be more vigilant. No harm done, right?