What's happened to Norovirus this year?

[Lencoboy]

So far I haven't yet heard of any Norovirus cases this year, which are usually doing the rounds by now.

Could it ironically be down to the Covid pandemic and its associated restrictions that are having (positive) knock-on effects on both it and other viruses/flus/bugs typical of this time of year?

[glassgirlw]

Our flu and stomach bug numbers are way, way down. Almost nonexistent. I truly think it’s due to mask wearing and distancing. Seems to be a beneficial way to keep other nasty bugs away for sure!

[Carys]

Definitely, none of us in this household has had one communicable illness since, well, before last March. Usually we'd have had multiple colds. Stringent infection control procedures, by the masses, well.......controls infections. ;)

[Pamplemousse]

Think about the main message of Covid prevention - wash your hands.

Noro is very easily transmitted via door handles and the like. If people are doing their twenty-second handwash and/or sanitising afterwards then it comes as little surprise to me. One place I work at asks you that after you've washed your hands and dried them with a paper towel is to use another towel to open the toilet door with and then deposit said towel in an adjacent bin.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I just read this as Noivous :roflmao:

[pulisa]

I just read this as Noivous :roflmao:

Me too...:D

[Lencoboy]

Certainly some very plausible and expected explanations from others on here so far.

Just demonstrates how blasé we were about bugs and infections in general pre-Covid, and how poor our hand hygiene often could be, whilst on the other hand, the media often used to make a song and dance over these almost-annual Norovirus epidemics, whilst the serial emetophobics quaked in their boots!

Ironically they mostly seem to be spared that misery so far this season, thanks to this pandemic, though it demonstrates of course that every cloud has a silver lining!

[dorabella]

Or could it be that flu infections are just not being recorded? I seem to remember that back in August the NHS/ONS/HSE - can't remember which acronym - changed its policy and started conflating all respiratory viruses under the Covid banner.

A friend of mine told me today that her entire household has 'caught it' and the symptoms she described to me sounded exactly like a classic case of flu. One of her sons has tested positive and negative before he supposedly infected the household - yet who really knows what they have caught when the PCR test is known to be an inexact science and picks up every thing but boys and rent (as the saying goes).

I've always practiced hand hygiene but that's because I was brought up to do so. Don't think that during this pandemic though that it has made that much difference to not spreading virus. Crikey when you go into a hospital, supposedly a safe hygienic environment, that where you pick up most infections ....MRSA ... Covid ... to name the most obvious.

Just my opinion and probably not one that many people share I suspect.

[Lencoboy]

Or could it be that flu infections are just not being recorded? I seem to remember that back in August the NHS/ONS/HSE - can't remember which acronym - changed its policy and started conflating all respiratory viruses under the Covid banner.

A friend of mine told me today that her entire household has 'caught it' and the symptoms she described to me sounded exactly like a classic case of flu. One of her sons has tested positive and negative before he supposedly infected the household - yet who really knows what they have caught when the PCR test is known to be an inexact science and picks up every thing but boys and rent (as the saying goes).

I've always practiced hand hygiene but that's because I was brought up to do so. Don't think that during this pandemic though that it has made that much difference to not spreading virus. Crikey when you go into a hospital, supposedly a safe hygienic environment, that where you pick up most infections ....MRSA ... Covid ... to name the most obvious.

Just my opinion and probably not one that many people share I suspect.

Blimey, I remember the mammoth hoo-ha over the MRSA 'epidemic' reportedly plaguing our hospitals during the first half of the 2000s and being heavily politicised at the time by the then-Tory opposition, and especially during the run-up to the 2005 GE.

Strangely, its frenzied media attention has mostly petered out since then, and ironically, our current Tory govt hardly ever seem to get it in the neck over whatever MRSA infections are doing the rounds in such places today like Blair and Co did back in the day, but still (justifiably IMO) get it in the neck over endless cutbacks, of course.

[Pamplemousse]

I remember the MRSA business well as my wife contracted it whilst in hospital and so was shunted off into a room of her own... which she rather liked, it had to be said.

[Lencoboy]

I remember the MRSA business well as my wife contracted it whilst in hospital and so was shunted off into a room of her own... which she rather liked, it had to be said.

I'm still extremely miffed as to why not such a big deal has been made over MRSA in hospitals and the like over the past decade, which was heavily politicised back in the 2000s (by the Tories in opposition), but has, ironically, barely registered as a major crisis under the Tory govts since then, whom one would assume would have got it in the neck over just the same!

Very odd.