Norovirus is 100% preventable by handwashing

How to prevent norovirus?

Not only during the Pyeongchang Olympics, but also every year, there are a large number of norovirus cases in elementary schools. The main symptoms of norovirus are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach pain. These symptoms go into remission after 2~3 days, but they can be passed on to others for up to 8 weeks.

Norovirus is spread by person-to-person contact rather than environmental-person contact. A densely populated environment is the perfect condition for mass spread. Statistics show that there are also many asymptomatic infected people, indicating that quarantine is not the best way to prevent an outbreak.

A team of researchers from Arizona State University analyzed data on cruise ship infections to create a new mathematical model of how norovirus spreads. The study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, found that norovirus had a replica count of 7.2, compared to 1.3 for seasonal influenza.

*Replica number: The average number of people infected by a person in a susceptible population

What's interesting about this study is that "strict environmental cleaning" reduced the size of norovirus outbreaks by up to 60%, while "strict handwashing" could theoretically reduce the size of the outbreak by 100%, which could be completely prevented. Handwashing was able to prevent the spread of disease, which was not completely done by quarantine, and we were able to derive cost-effective measures.