The U.K. Food Standards Authority would like all British citizens to keep it up to date with the color of their vomit.

The government wants to keep abreast of the norovirus.

Twitterers are desperately fond of keeping everyone fully informed of all their bodily functions. They create helpful hashtags like #barf, #puke and #retch.

The FSA’s social media manager, James Baker, told the Guardian: “We found that the changes in the number of tweets using symptom keywords predicted the increase in lab reports at the start of the annual peak in human cases.”

Indeed, graphic Twitter descriptions of stool hue and vomit shade might give the authorities as much as a four-week headstart in dealing with the virus’ spread.