If someone you live with gets norovirus (the nasty stomach bug on the rise), your first thought might be something like, “Damn, I feel so bad for them,” followed quickly by some form of, “I need to make sure I don’t catch it.” There’s nothing like the constant sound of vomit to make you pray you aren’t the virus’s next victim. But before you grab the cleaning supplies, know this: Many common disinfectants (containing things like ammonia and alcohol), hand sanitizer, and even Clorox and Lysol wipes, often do not fully kill norovirus. You’re going to need the hard stuff for this one: a bleach solution…and a strong arm.
That’s because norovirus is a sturdy little bugger. Unlike plenty of other common viruses, like COVID-19 and flu, which are surrounded by a fat membrane (or “envelope”), norovirus is secured in a very strong protein shell called a capsid, Lauren Pischel, MD, MSc, an infectious disease specialist and instructor at Yale School of Medicine, tells SELF. Cleaning agents, hand sanitizer, and soap have a difficult time dissolving that hard protein layer, she explains. Thanks to this mighty shield and its ability to survive at a wide range of temperatures, norovirus can also live on surfaces for as long as a couple weeks.
Read on to learn how this notoriously contagious microbe can infiltrate a home—and what actually kills norovirus on surfaces and hands.
Understanding how norovirus spreads can help you figure out what and where to clean.
Because norovirus wreaks its havoc on the GI tract (triggering vomiting and diarrhea), it typically spreads through tiny poop and vomit particles. That might seem most relevant for someone who’s directly caring for, say, a young child and helping them go to the bathroom—which is certainly one path to catching it, Dr. Pischel says. But these little bits can also travel in many less apparent ways: For example, a sick person uses the bathroom and doesn’t wash their hands super well before shaking your hand, and then you touch your mouth; or their hands still contain some of the virus when they prepare food, which you then eat. Or, if an infected person touches a countertop, doorknob, or light switch with a hand that still has some virus on it, and then you follow suit, you could wind up ingesting it when you later eat or touch your mouth.
There’s also the ever-grosser possibility that the virus becomes aerosolized (meaning, dispersed into the air) because of how forcefully someone vomits or when they flush their diarrhea, Dr. Pischel says. If you’re in the vicinity, you could unfortunately inhale it and get infected that way—but even if not, it’s possible that you could pick it up by touching any surface within the splash zone (sorry) where particles may have settled.
The worst part: Getting exposed to even a minuscule number of viral particles is enough to make you sick, Dr. Pischel says. Research suggests as few as 18 can do it. (For reference, it’s thought to take around 100 particles to get sick from COVID.) To visualize how little exposure that entails, consider that one gram of poop (picture a quarter teaspoon) from a person with norovirus can include billions of viral particles. And it’s thought that as many as 10,000 can linger on surfaces that get contaminated. So in terms of cleaning, you’ll want to consider not only a bathroom that’s been subject to the GI mayhem of norovirus, but also any other object or surface that may have been touched or sprayed by an infected person.
How to effectively kill norovirus and keep it from ripping through your household
1. Use bleach to disinfect hard surfaces STAT.
As mentioned, many typical household cleaning sprays and wipes aren’t sufficient to get rid of norovirus. According to the CDC, what actually kills norovirus is a chlorine bleach solution—which you can make by combining five to 25 tablespoons of household bleach with a gallon of water. (It’s important to use it within 24 hours of mixing it, or else some of that powerful bleach will have evaporated off.) And you want to do this as soon as you can after someone gets sick.
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