Norovirus!

[Clint Yeastwood]

As people say, sometimes there is little difference between what comes out of each end.

 

[mashdar]

I'm a little late to the party, but here to say:

Washing your hands is only half the battle with norovirus. It is incredibly capable of aerosolizing during an "event" (either exit), and coating ALL surfaces in a room. Faucets. Door knobs. You, if you walk in within several minutes. That paper towel that pre-unrolled.

Further, it takes extremely few (10-20?) viruses to cause an infection. Basically a single aerosol particle is an infection waiting to happen.

It's basically an unstoppable force of nature in public restrooms, especially where a**h*** architects/owners don't install paper towels and make the door swing in...

Some significant fraction of people (~20% of Northern Europeans) are FUT2 non-secretor and are mostly immune. So there's that.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

So basically, if someone in your house gets it, and you are not immune, you are likely gonna come down with it no matter what you do?

 

[mashdar]

So basically, if someone in your house gets it, and you are not immune, you are likely gonna come down with it no matter what you do?

Yes. There are other things that look like norovirus, though, so without a lab test it may not be as contagious, or you might get it even if immune to norovirus.

The reason it blows up on cruise ships is that you get an exponential spreading phase with enough time (~ 2 days) for the first 20+ cases to explode throughout the ship. Once you have 20 people sick on one ship, the virus basically ends up everywhere. (Normally by 2 days the new cases spread way out and hopefully most of those get sick at home.)

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Well that reassures my policy around colds etc in the family.
I don't really take any measures to avoid it since we are all in such close proximity to eachother what with small children and all it's basically a coin toss whether you will come down with something or not.

At work you can at least keep distance if you know you have something at home...

 

[Snuffy]

I think our immune systems got complacent during Covid when nobody was catching any of the normal crud in the mask-and-hand-sanitizer years. Once we got back to handshakes and open coughs it's virus party time.