Norovirus is spreading via clothes and soft-furnishings, experts warn

I know I am always surprised when people don’t know this, and horrified when travel YouTubers flash tiny tiny bottles (so small these wouldn’t provide a sufficient quantity of the substance to work even on own terms) of alcohol sanitiser and call it good. Spreading misinformation about.

It seems to me that lack of knowledge around this may be made more likely at this time a result of governments messaging regarding this Covid pandemic, because alcohol does deal with SARS and governments decided to direct attention from infection via the inhalation of air borne breath to breath tiny SARS particles and on to hand to contaminated surface transmission. As there aren’t sinks to use in every possible location for handwashing, this resulted in the hyping the standard alcohol hand sanitiser. As a safety precaution it’s dominant above all else now.

But also I think knowledge gets lost because there is a lack of investment in public health campaigns and in healthcare provision where we’d otherwise and in previous times did receive regular reminders.

I probably know about the limitations of alcohol for sanitation because am sick. Also because I am, I forget everything I know or research almost immediately. I have noticed that when I look stuff like this up it’s really hard to get straight clear answers and I expect most people which would include me if I wasn’t so sickly just end up giving up and hoping for the best.


For example people being advised to hot wash and hot dry their clothing. Well you’re gonna destroy your clothes that way. It’s really hard to find stuff that won’t shrink and mishape to wash at 60c or above and dry hot. I know because I need that ideally for allergy reasons. That’s one example but there’s always something unachievable involved and that encourages tuning out.

 

I think folk have always not-known it. The episode at work happened nearly 20 years ago, and they all thought then that alcohol gel would keep them safe from norovirus.

I didn't know myself, which is why I asked the company GP when I had to contact him about something. He explained that to kill a range of illness-causing bugs you need substances with more than one biocide, and the clinical ones are useful because they come with data on how fast they work.

I wouldn't have known otherwise, my only experience was disinfection for wildlife projects and everybody used 4% hypochlorite solution. We were cleaning boots and equipment that wasn't affected by it, and it's an excellent all-rounder (we still use it now if we haven't got Virkon to hand). But it's pretty hopeless in an office with a virus that's spread via surfaces, and they include computer equipment, phones, and soft furnishings.

 

As always you’re a mine of information I always enjoy

I guess that’s what I mean though, every year a newspaper article tells us that alcohol doesn’t work yet we never learn this. So I think it’s fair to say leaving matters of public health up to a chance read by someone or other isn’t going to cut it.

The reason I think it’s likely worse now is because people have had doubt over effectiveness alcohol removed by the fact it’s exactly this that’s doted around hospitals and GP waiting rooms.

Why wouldn’t you think this was the best of the best? You’re not going to assume that the hospital is -still, in this time of every precaution against Covid is too much trouble- primarily concerned with Covid, when it’s ‘so mild’ that only people who are not you will now risk death or permanent debilitation from it, and just shrugging over Norovirus.

You might reasonably assume that there was some health related logic to all this.

 

actually not strictly accurate, i dont wipe everything because i am nowhere near well enough. Fridge/freezer items get wiped by eother me or carer, & cupboard stuff gets quarantined for a few days, ideally a wk before being touched. Perhaps this wont be as good for norovirus maybe takes longer to die?

I only have a few fresh items delivered per wk, & then a 'big shop' once a month of cupboard items/laundry etc, i get them sufficinetly in advance that they can be left on the table with a towel over them. Its in a routine now as i set all this up during the early days of covid where we had endless discussions on S4 about what we were doing

Carers thought i was mental but its worth it to me, i think they prefer to spray each item with Dew (the mist is quite fine), but i prefer to wipe with a soaked thin cloth because it requires no lifting - items can be left on the table to wipe & simply turned while sitting down with legs up, whereas to spray the underneath you have to lift it up & also the repeated squeezing of the spray is a problem for me as a severe person.

 

Also, get a new bottle of bleach (first opened < a month ago for best effect) & add 1/3 - 1 1/2 cups of bleach to a gallon of water.

Oh, and don't go on a cruise

 

It can apparently survive for up to three or four weeks, but the typical lifespan is probably much shorter. I suspect that might be included in every media report to emphasise how easy it is to pick it up.

Apart from worktops, handles and switches, I don't sanitise objects much. I wash my hands after handling stuff brought into the house before I touch my face or eat, which is easier to manage than cleaning an entire consignment of groceries and dozens of little tins of cat food!

I've ordered some Clinell so I can use it to clean my hands during sessions, which is where I'm probably most likely to get infected. I can cope with Covid and colds if I have to, but I would find norovirus hard.

 

oh goodness! no! I dont do a full order 20-30 items, but most weeks i have only a handful, and I usually have help with it in any case.
But my cognitive difficulties are such that I wouldnt remember, or indeed be physically able to, for example pick up a bag of ready prepped salad from the fridge, wash hands, get the salad from the bag & onto the plate, seal up the bag & return to fridge, wash hands again. Repeat for cooked meat, repeat for salad cream etc. Its much easier and safer to make sure everything in fridge or freezer is clean & safe.

Cat food i would disinfect, because I'd wash hands after handling the vile repulsive stuff anyway lol

aww i do miss having a cat

 

Oncologist on X:

Norovirus can survive freezing for months as well as heat up to 145F (the max temp of many home dishwashers).

 

yes its interesting, research found the covid coronavirus living after 28days on a surface in a household fridge! 48hrs on absorbant cardboard. But who knows what the real world situation is.

People think i'm nutty getting items wiped, but i been doing it since looong before the pandemic... handwashing vigilantly since mums chemo in 2011 on the advice of her nurses which i decided to follow too & then wiping since a nasty bout with flu in 2012, which can only have come from a surface coming in as i was housebound & alone at the time.

People tell me they always wash their hands after putting their shopping away, but then they seem to believe that their cupboard/fridge somehow disinfects those same items, so that an hour later when they take them out of the fridge to use they are somehow magically now safe, and go from handling them to handling the food that comes out of those same packets without washing hands again.

Not critisising, & its fine if we make sure that hands are washed after handling the packaging, its just that most people tend to forget that the packaging on the food is different from the food itself, so washing hands and then picking up the bread loaf & opening it to get bread out, means that the bread now has on it whatever was on the outer bag, tranferred by our hands.

But we must all do what feels right to us & likely if i were even a little less severe, I dont think i'd bother either. I think you're right Kitty that your most likely exposure would be during sessions, FWIW i think you're being really sensible there.

I was only commenting because it baffles me that friends/carers think items are contaminated enough to require handwashing after unpacking their shopping... but then somehow magically become decontaminated while sitting in their cupboard & therefore dont require any hygiene measures after touching later.

Incase its helpful to anyone... if you put a couple of teatowles in bottom of fruit bowl to prevent bruising, its possible to open the bag & empty apples/bananas into the bowl without touching them & then simply wash well with water before eating

 

= 62.778 degrees celsius.
Oh dear.

 

Yeah colder temperatures help the little life survive much longer along with the lettuce

 

You mean you wouldn't feel comfortable spending days on a floating petri dish?

 

Ah, right—I never eat anything like that. I haven't been able to swallow salad without choking since I got the gift of ME/CFS.

I ladle dishes out of the containers I froze them in and into whatever I'm reheating them in. I do have some cold food, but it's also stuff I've made myself, like soda bread and fruit or tea loaf. That goes in an airtight container after it comes out of a very hot oven.

It's a bit different when it's not stored in its packaging, I guess? The only food I use straight from the packaging is things like tinned tomatoes, beans and pulses, and fruit. It's been pasteurised in the tin, and everything except the fruit goes into food that then gets cooked anyway.

The one problem is bread, and there's not much any of us can do about that unless we're able to make it. I empty breadcakes onto clean boards, chuck the film bags, wash my hands, wrap it up in portion-sized bags, then freeze it. I usually buy several weeks' supply at once, so I'm not eating it from the bag the supermarket supplied it in.

I'm probably just really eccentric. I don't even like hot drinks, so there are never things like milk bottles or boxes of tea bags to deal with. I drink tap water I've stored in the fridge in my own bottles then fizzed up with a Sodastream, and I take it out with me too.

 

oh for sure!

yeah i just eat everything out of the original packaging (except apples/bananas) so i just wipe the bag. A large loaf i wipe the bag, remove half & freeze it, eat directly out of the other half. All my food is ready prepared as i cant do anything for myself. Ready meals, ready prep'd salad & veg. I sometimes need carer to heat the meal if i cant manage it but Cant afford to pay carer extra hour to cook something from scratch so its convenience food for me.

 

Seems easier to just keep my rubber gloves on. Using a touchpad is a bit sticky, but better than I would have expected!

 

fine day so I went into local shop.
There is a limit to how much cleaning products I can use. Especially when it comes into contact with skin. Is norovirus more likely to be spread though contact than droplets?

 

Yes, I think so.

It is spread by infected body fluids, especially in households, but you need to come into contact with them. It's thought that when people get infected in workplaces, shops, hospitals, etc, it's mostly by touching surfaces contaminated with virus and then transferring it to their mouth, eyes or nose.

The most effective barrier to infection is apparently washing your hands with soap and water after you've handled something touched recently by others, before you touch your face or handle food.

 

That's useful to know but not very practical if you can't use soap or detergents!