What No One's Telling You About Norovirus

According to news outlets, this infection is "surging across the U.S."

Norovirus is making headline news.

A few hours ago, AOL published an article about the gastrointestinal viral infection, “Got Norovirus? Doctors Say This is Exactly What You Should Know.”

According to CBS News, emergency rooms in Minnesota are at their breaking point because flu, Covid, and Norovirus cases are surging.

And two days ago TIME magazine reported that as cases of this stomach bug “explode,” researchers are racing to test a vaccine to prevent it.

What is Norovirus?

Norovirus is a very contagious and common virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea.

Norovirus spreads quickly and easily, via contaminated food, human contact, and infected surfaces.

You can get it many times over, as there are many different noroviruses.

According to the CDC’s website: “It is sometimes called the ‘stomach flu’ or the ‘stomach bug.’ However, norovirus illness is not related to the flu. The flu is caused by the influenza virus. Norovirus causes acute gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the stomach or intestines.

“Most people with norovirus illness get better within 1 to 3 days; but they can still spread the virus for a few days after.”

I’m pretty sure my son and I both got it around Christmas, though I can’t prove we had a norovirus and not a strain of the flu. I spent a day with a low-grade fever dozing on the couch. My son spent three days sick with diarrhea, no appetite, and chills.

The biggest concern when you have a viral infection that causes vomiting and diarrhea is dehydration.

We both made sure to stay well-hydrated.

I made old-fashioned organic chicken soup.

He tried a BRAT diet while he was recovering (bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast). The toast and rice didn’t agree with him. But the bananas and chicken soup did.

Back before the Covid craziness, though, news reports about norovirus were much less alarmist.

Five years ago the press reported neutrally about Norovirus

This is a 154-word article published on December 13, 2019 in the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

“More than 100 students and staff at a Seattle public school were reported as sick Thursday in an apparent outbreak of norovirus. Leschi Elementary School will be closed Friday. The building will undergo a cleaning by the school's custodial staff. No staff or students can be in the building, under order of Public Health—Seattle & King County. Officials hope to reopen the school on Monday.

“In a statement, the district also states: ‘No other schools are impacted and, besides Leschi Elementary, there have not been other reports of a greater-than-normal number of cases of illness among students and staff at any other school in the district.’

“Three other Washington schools have also closed due to concerns over illnesses. The Vancouver school district announced Thursday that three of its schools are being extensively cleaned after dozens of students called out sick. The district sent a letter to parents warning of stomach flu symptoms.”

Five years ago the news about Norovirus was matter-of-fact, giving the public information that parents and Seattle residents needed to know. There was no fear mongering, no exaggeration, no pointing fingers or assigning blame.

An entire school shut down

But let’s look at the Seattle PI article again.

More than one hundred students and staff were sick. An entire school was forced to close down. Three other schools in Washington state were also closed due to concerns over illnesses, though the article doesn’t say which ones.

This was actually an enormous outbreak of an infectious disease—to have 100 students sick in a single elementary school.

What was the difference between then and now? There was no vaccine for norovirus in the pipeline.

If this had been an infection for which we had a vaccine—like whooping cough (pertussis) or measles—not only would every news station in the country have been reporting on it, but the Seattle PI article would have been quite different.

As anyone who subscribes to my Substack is already aware, blaming, fear-mongering, and vilifying vaccine safety advocates is a favorite topic of the mainstream media. These articles have headlines shaming so-called “anti-vaxxers” for being “selfish”;

warning readers to be wary of their “dangerous manipulation” tactics; and blaming vaccine-hesitant parents for disease outbreaks.

Norovirus can be nasty. And now that Moderna is on the cusp of creating an mRNA vaccine against it, we can say goodbye to rational, fact-based reporting about the illness.

But none of that is the elephant in the room that I actually want to address.

Here’s what you’re not being told about norovirus: the likely reason that this gastrointestinal disorder has become so much more common and so much more severe in the past decade is actually because of another vaccine.