Norovirus!

[Clint Yeastwood]

I hate norovirus. I have had it a number of times, and the thing I really hate about it is knowing that the only reason it spreads is that about 60% of Americans don't wash their hands after they poop.

I had a freeloading uncle who wanted a free Florida vacation, so he and his family visited us on Christmas right after he got over norovirus. He didn't warn us, because he wanted that free vacation. This man was a biologist, so you would think he understood germs. We all ate cookies and so on from common dishes, and a few days later, my mother was the only one standing. That was about 30 years ago, and it still makes me mad. This guy was contagious, and he was somehow transferring his poop to our food, so he was getting off the toilet and walking out the bathroom door without a thought.

I hate norovirus.

Anyway, it's spreading right now, and alcohol and disinfectant wipes won't kill it. Guess what does? Star San! I plan to spray it on my hands whenever I come home until this is over. Might work.

Brewing is power.

There is also something called hypochlorous acid, if you can find it.

 

[crazyjake19]

People at work wonder why I wash my hands so often, and that's exactly why. I wash them after using the restroom, then I have to touch the door to leave, so I wash them again at the breakroom. We work with one guy who brings papers towels and a spray bottle of cleaner to clean the toilet before he goes, and after he wipes he just gets up and walks out. Boggles my mind.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Everybody's culture is different. My family is from the South. One of the things I never got used to when I lived among Northerners was their comfort with poop and spit. The first time I saw someone spit all over a napkin and clean a baby's face with it, I could not believe it. I had a roommate from New York, and when it was his turn to do dishes, he just rinsed the silverware. I had to stand over him. He used to dip a potato chip, suck the dip off, and dip it again. He worked at a Carvel, and he told me something that made it impossible for me to eat their ice cream. He said the machines were set up so the only way to judge the ingredients was to stick your bare arm down into them.

A girl I went to college with up north worked in the university cafeteria. She was serving rice, and I saw a cockroach running through it. I raised hell. Her response was to grab it out of the rice and try to keep serving, like the real problem wasn't the roach; it was that people might find out about it.

Kids I went to school with were always saying, "Give me a lick. Give me a sip. Give me a bite." People got angry at me and made fun of me because I didn't want to consume their spit. It was like germs were unknown above the Mason-Dixon line. They thought I was insane.

My dirty uncle was from Utah, so basically a Northerner.

The cleanest people I've known were blacks and Southerners. No idea why. Black people seem to be the cleanest. They can't believe there are people who don't use a washcloth in the shower. Neither can I.

Here's something else that's weird: people cleaning their shopping carts with wipes before they go in a grocery store. They go in and touch all sorts of things other people have touched, and they go home without using wipes again. I clean everything when I LEAVE. I don't care what I bring in.

Anyway, here's hoping none of us share food with anyone like my uncle this winter.

 

[Agent]

I'm a particularly troubled sect of the general public. Yesterday, I chipped and shoveled ~5 tons of iced poop concentrate - poopsicle, if you will.

Aside from soaking my boots, coat, hat, and overalls in the ick, I also caught splash damage to the eyes, ears, mouth, and face.

I like to play a fun game called "will that make me sick roulette". I use beer as my internal disinfectant. Works better than a flu shot as far as I can tell.

 

[Imhoppy]

Then there is the guy who takes a dump, then afterwards wets his hands in the sink not bothering to use any soap, and "combs" his hair with his hands to dry them off - sort of. Then walks right out of the restroom to spread his filth to others. Sound familiar?

 

[JohnDBrewer]

I don't get people who use their phone in the stall. The last thing you touch entering the stall is the locking handle. The last thing the folks before you touched leaving the stall was that same handle, before they washed their hands. Guess what all over your phone. Even worse, if someone had a break-through.....

 

[MaxStout]

People who walk their dogs and don't pick up the poop from pedestrian/biking trails. Every trail here has a dispenser of free poops bags, but I guess that's too much for some people to deal with.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I'm a particularly troubled sect of the general public. Yesterday, I chipped and shoveled ~5 tons of iced poop concentrate - poopsicle, if you will.

Aside from soaking my boots, coat, hat, and overalls in the ick, I also caught splash damage to the eyes, ears, mouth, and face.

I like to play a fun game called "will that make me sick roulette". I use beer as my internal disinfectant. Works better than a flu shot as far as I can tell.

You should clean your pool more often.

 

[Tartan1]

People who walk their dogs and don't pick up the poop from pedestrian/biking trails. Every trail here has a dispenser of free poops bags, but I guess that's too much for some people to deal with.

And then there are those who do pick after their dogs and then dispose of the bags on the side of the trail or throw them up into the tree branches and left like ornaments . Go figure, I guess they think these poop prezzies will mysteriously disappear with time

 

[shoengine]

I'm a particularly troubled sect of the general public. Yesterday, I chipped and shoveled ~5 tons of iced poop concentrate - poopsicle, if you will.
View attachment 867113
Aside from soaking my boots, coat, hat, and overalls in the ick, I also caught splash damage to the eyes, ears, mouth, and face.

I like to play a fun game called "will that make me sick roulette". I use beer as my internal disinfectant. Works better than a flu shot as far as I can tell.

#dirtyjobs

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I don't get people who use their phone in the stall. The last thing you touch entering the stall is the locking handle. The last thing the folks before you touched leaving the stall was that same handle, before they washed their hands. Guess what all over your phone. Even worse, if someone had a break-through.....

How would you like to work for Apple and have people coming in every day with phones they dropped in poop while texting on the can? "I don't know what happened. I've never dropped it."

I will never understand people who use the phone on the toilet. Apart from the hygiene issue, they're holding an Internet-connected, hackable device with two high-resolution cameras and a microphone.

Other people's phones are always greasy. Mine always looks like I just cleaned it. I have no idea what's on their hands to make their phones look like that.

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Hey! Uncle Joe? Merry Xmas!!!!

 

[Skeeter686]

And then there are those who do pick after their dogs and then dispose of the bags on the side of the trail or throw them up into the tree branches and left like ornaments . Go figure, I guess they think these poop prezzies will mysteriously disappear with time

I thought that was just by me. I can't understand why you'd go through the effort of bagging it up and then just leave it there. I mean, it would decompose if you'd just left it, but you've now ensured that it'll be there for posterity. WTH???

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Let's discuss people who get in public pools, swim for three hours, drink lots of soda, and never get out.

 

[MaxStout]

The P is silent, like in swimming.

Back on topic, I looked over the EPA antimicrobials list for norovirus. Most quats only work if the dwell time is at least 10 minutes. Keeping surfaces wet that long would take some diligence. I did notice a few quats on the list that are effective under shorter times--must be the concentration. Hand sanitizer doesn't work for shiat on noro. I noticed some of the hydrogen peroxide products are effective, taking only a minute or so. Don't know how well the 3% H2O2 you get at the drugstore would work. And of course, bleach.

The list doesn't mention the concentration of active ingredients in each product, so hard to tell the true effectiveness of the chemicals.

Apparently, ordinary soap and water breaks the virus' hard shells. Wash your hands, people.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

The web says norovirus has no shell.

Phosphoric acid and hypochlorous acid work, so I'm satisfied.

 

[MaxStout]

Interesting. I'm seeing scientific literature discussing the virus' protein shell, the capsid.

E.g., https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6466125/

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Well, I got this wrong. It has an extra-hard shield alcohol can't break. A source I am looking at says soap can do it "most of the time," which is not exactly reassuring.

I also found out it can be spread through vomit, not just poop. The gross thing about that is that if you catch it from a person who is no longer vomiting, you know you ate his you-know-what.

Not that eating vomit is a lot better.

 

[MaxStout]

Well, I got this wrong. It has an extra-hard shield alcohol can't break. A source I am looking at says soap can do it "most of the time," which is not exactly reassuring.

I think good hand-washing is the first line of defense, but yeah, it's not 100% effective. Disinfecting surfaces is helpful if you use the right stuff. But one of the tech articles I read stated that ingesting only a few virus particles is enough to inoculate yourself. If there is an infection where you are, like a restaurant or cruise ship, you're probably going to catch it.

 

[Kent88]

Reminds me of an old Mythbusters episode or two. That clip doesn't show the results, unfortunately.

I also can't find a clip of the toothbrush experiment, but I think I can quote that episode from memory: "there's poop everywhere".

That said, wash your dang hands.

 

[Mr. Vern]

Reminds me of an old Mythbusters episode or two.

Last weekend I dropped my buttered slice and I was thinking of MythBusters before it hit the floor. Ironically it landed butter side up, indicating I had buttered the wrong side of the bread. I still ate it.

Norovirus is the most common cause of gastroenteritis (stomach flu). Indeed, there is poop everywhere.

 

[day_trippr]

Noro (enhanced by Covid-19) is the reason I have studiously avoided setting foot on the floating biological laboratories known as "cruise ships" even while my beloved Spousal Unit takes a 10-11 day cruise to the Caribbean every year. She goes with some subset of her sisters (she has 5) occasionally accompanied by their sole brother (imagine the hellscape he grew up in ), and some number of the collective spouses to same.

There's just no friggin' way I'm consenting to being locked up with three thousand new friends for a week and a half. I got plenty of health issues to deal with already, thanks very much! Besides, if I can't fish it, I don't want to be on it!

Cheers! (And that's that!)

 

[shoengine]

Noro (enhanced by Covid-19) is the reason I have studiously avoided setting foot on the floating biological laboratories known as "cruise ships" even while my beloved Spousal Unit takes a 10-11 day cruise to the Caribbean every year. She goes with some subset of her sisters (she has 5) occasionally accompanied by their sole brother (imagine the hellscape he grew up in ), and some number of the collective spouses to same.

There's just no friggin' way I'm consenting to being locked up with three thousand new friends for a week and a half. I got plenty of health issues to deal with already, thanks very much! Besides, if I can't fish it, I don't want to be on it!

Cheers! (And that's that!)

I have a Carnival cruise you might be interested in.

 

[day_trippr]

Nope nope nope

The Spousal Unit is already working on her next cruise. She likes the repositioning cruises because they're longer than the one week trips, and a bit cheaper I think. She will, as always, enjoy my company via text

Cheers!

 

[mac_1103]

imagine the hellscape he grew up in

Makes fever and diarrhea sound downright appealing.

 

[jdauria]

Norovirus is no fun. Every year my extended family rent a place on Cape Cod, this past summer we had 14 of us, 9 adults and 5 kids under 5. We got 3 good days in, then the night of day 3 started the nightmare. One of the kids got sick, then I was throwing and going all night, as was another guy...and then slowly but surely it picked off almost everyone else by the end of the week. I was down all day Monday and Tuesday, did an hour on the beach Wednesday and Thursday, I finally ate more than crackers for the first time and we all packed up Thursday afternoon and left a day early (we had the house Friday to Friday). The last person to get it, got sick when she got home Thursday.

We are already stocking up on hand sanitizer for every room for the house for this summer.

 

[MaxStout]

Indeed, there is poop everywhere.

 

[Snuffy]

 

[shoengine]

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

 

[shoengine]

A thin wahfer

 

[Skeeter686]

View attachment 867966

Maybe there's something wrong with me, but this looks like some kind of fetish sex doll to me.

 

[Broothru]

Noro (enhanced by Covid-19) is the reason I have studiously avoided setting foot on the floating biological laboratories known as "cruise ships" even while my beloved Spousal Unit takes a 10-11 day cruise to the Caribbean every year. She goes with some subset of her sisters (she has 5) occasionally accompanied by their sole brother (imagine the hellscape he grew up in ), and some number of the collective spouses to same.

There's just no friggin' way I'm consenting to being locked up with three thousand new friends for a week and a half. I got plenty of health issues to deal with already, thanks very much! Besides, if I can't fish it, I don't want to be on it!

Cheers! (And that's that!)

Yeah, let's talk about hospitals.

Two weeks ago I got to spend two nights in one, following a scheduled surgery. By the time I left, I had contracted whatever flu variant is making the rounds these days. Two days after going home, my wife (who was taking all the CDC precautions) had an unscheduled visit to the ER. When it rains, it pours.

She spent one night in the hospital before being discharged. Guess who else developed the flu? Before entering the hospital, we were both (relatively, for me) healthy, vacacced for flu and everything else we seniors get jabbed with on an annual basis, with otherwise robust immune responses. Both of us got sick.

Don't go to hospitals. They're full of sick people.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I could never take one of those cruises where you're jammed into a fat ugly ship with a huge crowd and expected to swim in tiny pools that are mostly pee and boogers.

I was lucky enough to spend a lot of days on a big boat belonging to my dad, and whenever we cruised by the ships with hundreds of people hanging over railings and waving, I felt bad for them.

I highly recommend Nile cruises, though. Not expensive and very pleasant, and you get to see things like the Valley of the Kings instead of creepy Disney islands and dirty old Nassau. But maybe they're less fun when covid isn't killing the tourism industry.

 

[MaxStout]

I highly recommend Nile cruises, though. Not expensive and very pleasant, and you get to see things like the Valley of the Kings instead of creepy Disney islands and dirty old Nassau. But maybe they're less fun when covid isn't killing the tourism industry.

Got a soundtrack for that.

 

[day_trippr]

Makes me wonder if the Mighty Mighty Bosstones might have ripped off Madness' style

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Interesting to find this thread. I've been lying on the couch all day with probably norovirus.
The rest of the family had it last week and I thought I managed to dodge it.
Oh well, luckily whenever I get a stomach flu of some kind the worst stomach problems usually just last at most the first day then I mostly have fever 2-3 days.

 

[MaxStout]

Makes me wonder if the Mighty Mighty Bosstones might have ripped off Madness' style

A lot of the third wave ska acts borrowed from the 2 tone sound. And 2 tone borrowed from Jamaican ska and punk.

 

[Snuffy]

The sickest I've ever experienced with a stomach virus was rotavirus. We attended a function with lots of toddlers about and they were telling stories of the terrible stomach flu everyone had caught the week before. There was a worktable in the garage off of the kitchen where diapers were being changed. Apparently I must have touched the surface when turning off under-cabinet lighting when the party was over. The description of rotavirus says it's most common and severe in children and that you contract it after coming in contact with infected feces. I'd rather not think about how I may have contracted it, TBH. All was fine until the next evening about 7pm. Began to feel horrible and went to bed early. I awoke at 2am and nearly turned furniture over getting to the bathroom where I then stayed for the next 8 hours. In that time, I puked 17 times in a cycle of hot sweaty nausea, puke, feeling ok for a minute and then shivering with cold, hot again etc. I drank water between each episode so there would at least be something to expel. I remember thinking that if this killed me, I would be ok with that. I got back to bed for a few hours and then it went the other direction. Totally uncontrollable contractions that had no regard for when or where you were when they hit - so again I spent hours in close proximity to the throne. I remember being thankful that the vomiting was first and not second in the sequence. When it was over, I was a trembling, twitching, hollow wreck and it took two days to recover enough to eat again. My family were nearly sliding against the walls to avoid me if they were in the same room. They stood at the door and tossed bottles of water and gatorade at me. The entire house was coated in Lysol and Clorox for weeks afterward. The best description I can come up with is "shockingly incapacitating".

 

[MaxStout]

We attended a function with lots of toddlers about and they were telling stories of the terrible stomach flu everyone had caught the week before.

That'd be the moment I'd NOPE right out of there.