Why did our moms keep us out of swim pools during the days of polio scares?

See below:: The virus spreads by: direct person-to-person contact; contact with infected mucus or phlegm from the nose or mouth; contact with infected feces. In areas where there was an outbreak, those most likely to get the disease included children, pregnant women, and the elderly. The disease was more common in the summer and fall. This is why we were told stay out of the pool!

Exposure risk: A community pool is an exposure risk for many germs.Polio is caused by a gut virus that often just caused diarrhea, but you continued to pass the virus in your poo for weeks after.Little kids can leak a little virus from their bottom, just by swimming in the pool, and other kids will swallow contaminated pool water and get sick. Pools try to kill germs with chlorine, but can't stop them all.