HARRISBURG (TNS) — If you got together with friends or family this holiday season, you probably heard about someone who was, as the saying goes, as sick as a dog, with a violently upset stomach.
The culprit: norovirus, the dreaded and contagious stomach bug that appears to be on the uptick across the northeast in the past few weeks.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the northeast is reporting an increase in positive cases of the illness, although specific state-by-state numbers are not available as state and local health departments are not required to report individual cases of norovirus illness to the federal agency.
More than 90 norovirus outbreaks were reported during the week of Dec. 5, the most recent week for which data is available, according to the CDC.
Officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Health noted that, as with all viral infections, noroviruses are unaffected by antibiotic treatment.
The symptoms of norovirus illness usually include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and some stomach cramping, department officials said. Sometimes people also have a low-grade fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, and a general sense of tiredness. The illness often begins suddenly, and the infected person may feel very sick.
Dr. John Goldman, infectious disease specialist at UPMC in central Pa., stresses that one of the most important things to keep in mind when it comes to norovirus is that if someone in your inner circle gets it, chances are you will come down with it too.
“Norovirus is a highly contagious gastroenteritis,” he said. “It almost always has relatively severe diarrhea and what distinguishes it from other viruses that circulate at this time of the year is that it often has a lot of vomiting. So typically someone who has classic norovirus has nausea, vomiting, they have a lot of diarrhea.”
Norovirus typically spread in two ways: Via fecal, oral contagion or through the air.
“The virus is very hardy, so it’s hard to kill,” Goldman said. “For example, most viruses, the flu virus, COVID virus, you actually can use alcohol, you can use hand sanitizer, and it kills the virus. With norovirus it is not killed by alcohol. It’s not killed by relatively high temperatures, and it can survive on surfaces for days to weeks.”
If you are taking care of a sick child, you could contract the virus simply via air droplets.
“When people are throwing up, they’re aerosolizing little bits of vomitus,” Goldman said. “You can get it from being through the air because you breathe in the vomitus and infect yourself.”
That’s the main reason the illness can go through quickly through a family.
There is sound advice to prevent and even speed up recovery for those who are sick.
Good hand washing is a must. As in vigorous washing with lots of soap and water.
“If you just use hand sanitizer, it’s not going to work,” Goldman said. “And you actually have to wipe down. Let’s say you’ve got the kid who’s just thrown up all over the bathroom. You have to wipe down.”
Goldman recommends that caretakers wear gloves, even masks if the sick person is throwing up.
Wipe bathroom surfaces down with a bleach solution. Most common cleaners will not be effective enough against the virus.
Ideally, wash the clothes, although you won’t likely bleach them, but that underscores just how contagious norovirus is.
Most people who come down with norovirus experience something between being completely asymptomatic to a severe bout fever, nausea and vomiting.
The demographics most at risk for ending up in the emergency room include people 65 and older, children in their first year of life and individuals with an immunity compromise.
Many children end up in the hospital due to dehydration.
Goldman recommends adults take anti-diarrhea medicine, whether over-the-counter or prescription.
He also recommends plenty of fluids (not just water), but something with electrolytes such as Gatorade. Other options are chicken soup, broth and even water and potato chips or pretzels.
“It’s one of the few times we’re going to advise people to have a lot of salt,” Goldman said.
The good news is that norovirus typically lasts 48 hours followed by a rapid recovery. Most people who get sick will not likely get sick again in the same year as norovirus tends to run in a season. But they can definitely get sick again next year.
Goldman said UPMC is seeing quite a number of outpatient cases involving norovirus. Most cases involve children; seldom adults.
One of Goldman’s most urgent pieces of advice addresses what he calls the epidemic of presenteeism.
“People tend to go to work or school unless they’re dead or hospitalized,” he said. “This is a very contagious virus. So if you think you have it, even if it’s an early stage, even if you think you could go to work, even if you think you can go to school, even if you think you can get the kid to daycare, it’s best to stay home.”
