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Here's one way you can see which illnesses are going around in your area. Five friends in Maryland came up with SickWeather dot com. You sign in, report your symptoms and location and get a chance to see what kind of heebie-jeebies 
are going around in your area.
Posted today here
<span style="font-weight: bold">A start-up with a potential way to avoid sickness</span>
By Michael S. Rosenwald
...
Sickweather gathers data from you (if you sign up) and from public information it scans from social networks to plot out on a map where people are sick, what’s wrong with them, etc. The big idea: If you can look on a map and see a cluster of ill people, you might want to avoid that place or be careful when there.
It’s a nifty concept, I think, and it’s part of a wave of development among computerites and hackers to use the Internet to spot outbreaks of illness. Google, for instance, is helping public health experts track flu outbreaks by monitoring increases in certain search terms. The influential journal Nature even published a paper on the topic, saying the method worked.
...
The other way Sickweather learns who is sick is by asking you how you feel if you are registered at Sickweather.com. Graham Dodge, the co-founder, told me that Sickweather hopes to make money by then serving you targeted ads for products that might help you feel better.
This morning, I logged in and the site asked me, “Michael, how are you feeling today?”
Out loud, I said, “lousy,” but then realized my laptop couldn’t hear me. So I pulled down a drop-down menu with a list of symptoms and maladies: pink eye, headache, hay fever, foot and mouth, fever, flu, ear infection, etc. I chose cough. Then the site plotted a little blue cloud on a map right near my house.
The site then told me, “General sickness, depression and cough are going around Germantown, Md.,” where I live.
I can vouch for the cough. So can my wife.
are going around in your area.Posted today here
<span style="font-weight: bold">A start-up with a potential way to avoid sickness</span>
By Michael S. Rosenwald
...
Sickweather gathers data from you (if you sign up) and from public information it scans from social networks to plot out on a map where people are sick, what’s wrong with them, etc. The big idea: If you can look on a map and see a cluster of ill people, you might want to avoid that place or be careful when there.
It’s a nifty concept, I think, and it’s part of a wave of development among computerites and hackers to use the Internet to spot outbreaks of illness. Google, for instance, is helping public health experts track flu outbreaks by monitoring increases in certain search terms. The influential journal Nature even published a paper on the topic, saying the method worked.
...
The other way Sickweather learns who is sick is by asking you how you feel if you are registered at Sickweather.com. Graham Dodge, the co-founder, told me that Sickweather hopes to make money by then serving you targeted ads for products that might help you feel better.
This morning, I logged in and the site asked me, “Michael, how are you feeling today?”
Out loud, I said, “lousy,” but then realized my laptop couldn’t hear me. So I pulled down a drop-down menu with a list of symptoms and maladies: pink eye, headache, hay fever, foot and mouth, fever, flu, ear infection, etc. I chose cough. Then the site plotted a little blue cloud on a map right near my house.
The site then told me, “General sickness, depression and cough are going around Germantown, Md.,” where I live.
I can vouch for the cough. So can my wife.
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