NEWSWEEK – The CDC has reported 91 outbreaks the highly contagious norovirus during the week of December 5, up from an average of 65 during the same period from 2012 to 2020.
As the illness causes an average of 900 deaths annually, mostly among older adults, along with 109,000 hospitalizations and 19 million to 21 million cases in the U.S. each year, prevention measures can be lifesaving.
What Is Norovirus
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, told Newsweek in an email on Sunday that “the illness is brief, but fierce.”
He classified the typical symptom development as beginning “with a sudden explosive vomiting episode which soon is followed by more vomiting and often diarrhea.”
Typically, most people recover within one to three days, with the exceptions of the elderly, immunocompromised people, and some children. “Dehydration is of special concern for the very young and older frail people who may require hospitalization for rehydration,” Schaffner said.
Best Practices for Preventing Norovirus
A tiny dose of just 10 viral particles can make a person ill, making it one of the most easily transmissible pathogens.
As the virus is “extremely contagious” and spreads very quickly, especially in spaces with groups of people, Schaffner said “good, repeated hand hygiene is the best preventive along with staying away from those who are ill.”
Vyas agreed and said that “handwashing is probably the very best thing to do.” The CDC encourages people to wash their hands well with soap and water, noting that “hand sanitizer alone does not work well against norovirus.”
Given that majority of the illness is passed through contaminated food and fomites, inanimate objects or surfaces that a contaminated individual touched, Vyas doesn’t recommend face masking …
