Norovirus can sure ruin your day, your week, your trip or your bugging out. It probably won’t kill you, but it sure will make you wish you were dead.
Norovirus – what is it and why should preppers (in particular) care
Norovirus is a form of gastroenteritis (commonly called the stomach flu). In fact, norovirus is the most common form of “the screamers”.
People suffering from norovirus have the joys of having diarrhea, vomiting and (sometimes very intense) stomach pains for a period of one to three days. This wonderful condition also blesses the victim with fever and headaches.
OK, we get it, it’s horrible… but why should preppers in particular care?
Because if this happens to somebody who is bugging out or in a SHTF situation, that person may be incapacitated to a major degree, and that person will also not only need to be cared for, but will also need to consume a LOT more water or other fluids than normal.
Additionally, if one person comes down with the norovirus, others in the same party are likely to get it. This is what’s technically known as “A BAD THING”.
Where does norovirus generally come from?
Poop.
That’s right, norovirus is generally spread by poop… food and water contaminated by fecal matter.
Before anybody freaks out (“OMG I had norovirus, does that mean I ate POOP????”) let’s bring it down a little and say “well, probably, but it most likely tiny little traces…”
Lots of these types of viruses trundle on into your food supply (often at restaurants), and you don’t know a thing about it for the 18-48 hours it takes to develop. If you get norovirus, it most likely wasn’t something you just ate, but rather something you ate a day or two ago.
Could it be something other than poop?
Absolutely, and in fact depending upon the situation, it’s LIKELY that the victims didn’t get it from poop contaminated food but instead got if from surfaces contaminated by somebody with the virus or even through the air. Even the tiniest droplets of fluid from person vomiting or with diarrhea can land on nearby surfaces, and it doesn’t take more than that to start a new infection. You have to be pretty close to the person to catch it from the air (it won’t linger for long), but it is possible.
Transmission by contaminated surfaces is very, very common when people are confined in large numbers in places such as cruise ships, hotels, casinos and sporting events. You can check the headlines, there are countless stories of cruise ships full of people breaking out with norovirus.
Norovirus poop is not nearly so happy as this poop appears to be.
Personal experience: You REALLY don’t want this bug
I’ve been hit by a very virulent strain of norovirus once, as has Spice.
When it hit me, I was at home, and I literally sat on the pot for hours, with a five-gallon bucket in front of me to catch anything coming out the top end while the toidy bowl took care of the bottom end.
Spice got hit with it when we were on the road, in a very rural area on Christmas day. Nothing was open, there was no place to stop but the bushes. Not her favorite memory.
Prevention
While norovirus often hits people when they are more confined (i.e. the winter) it is an all-season problem.
The best way to prevent catching this nasty little bug is proper hand washing (hot water and soap, scrubbing under your nails each and every time, etc.) after touching potentially contaminated surfaces.
One thing I have done is (unless there’s absolutely no way around it without offending somebody) stopping hand shaking. I generally say something like “I don’t want to give you my cold germs” (which is true, I may or may not have cold germs at any time and if I do, I don’t want to spread them) and people are good with that. (Spice’s note: Salty’s famous for his fist bump!)
Another useful habit is to keep your hands away from your mouth, and quit putting objects you handle (like pens) into your mouth. Hand to mouth transmission is the usual route, and people are often completely unaware of how often they do this.
Preventing your family and group from contracting norovirus or other poop-related diseases is a critically important part of setting up and operating an effective human waste management plan in a SHTF situation. Poop-borne diseases are responsible for killing hundreds of millions of people in the AD period of history, and we need to learn the lessons well.
We need proper outhouses/latrines in a SHTF situation, and prepping for them should be a top priority for anybody planning to bug in. Spice has this to offer on latrines:
Treatment & preps to have on hand
As for all viruses, antibiotics are entirely useless, so don’t waste your time trying them. Using antibiotics when they won’t help is worse than just treating the symptoms. Antibiotic resistance is a real thing, and so is the new layer of diarrhea introduced whenever antibiotics disturb your normal gut microbes.
Preppers should have plenty of antidiarrheals and fluids on hand at all times.
Spice wrote an article about this, here it is for you to check out
PrepperMed 101: This Poop Isn’t Funny Any More – Diarrhea Can Kill You
So why am I bringing this up now?
Like most things 3BY, it’s personal experience. Spice came down with a stomach bug over the weekend, it was from something she ate and it caused her to make several very fast trips to the bathroom.
She probably didn’t have norovirus, but rather some other form of gastroenteritis, but it got me to thinking we should probably have an article on norovirus here on 3BY. Moreover, a lot of people are now heading into shelters ahead of Hurricane Florence, and those tight quarters are Great for norovirus transmission.
SO… here it is.