{"id":59746,"date":"2025-12-08T18:37:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T23:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=59746"},"modified":"2025-12-08T18:37:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T23:37:22","slug":"highly-contagious-norovirus-spreading-rapidly-in-fl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/12\/08\/highly-contagious-norovirus-spreading-rapidly-in-fl\/","title":{"rendered":"Highly Contagious Norovirus Spreading Rapidly In FL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A nasty, highly contagious form of norovirus called \u201cwinter vomiting disease\u201d is spreading across the country, including in Florida, according to an analysis of wastewater at 13 surveillance sites in the state.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Norovirus cases typically spike after Christmas and New Year\u2019s gatherings, but the number of new cases in November showed a notable increase, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CDC tracks norovirus through voluntary reporting from clinics and state health departments, but says such data is unreliable because most people who get it are miserable for a few days, but don\u2019t seek medical attention or require hospitalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agency doesn\u2019t monitor viral activity in wastewater; however, data from WastewaterSCAN<\/a>, an academic program through Stanford University in partnership with Emory University, shows that norovirus has been rising nationally since mid-October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monitoring sites in Altamonte Springs, Orange County, Jupiter, Key Biscayne, Miami, St. Petersburg and Tallahassee show a rise in norovirus cases by the end of November. Southwest St. Petersburg reported the highest number of cases, while the least amount of cases were in northwest Orange County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are about 2,500 reported norovirus outbreaks a year<\/a>, according to the CDC. Some health experts worry that the variant GII.17, which was responsible for last year\u2019s spike, may have mutated and become more contagious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The GII.4 strain dominated norovirus outbreaks<\/a> for more than 30 years, but last year, the GII.17 mutation was responsible for about 75 percent of outbreaks<\/a>, according to the CDC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Robert Atmar, professor in the Department of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, says there are two possibilities: either the virus changed to become more transmissible, or changes in the population made more people susceptible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd probably it\u2019s a combination of both,\u201d Atmar said. \u201cBut whether it\u2019s going to persist this year, I think, is one of the big questions in our scientific community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Symptoms of the GII.17 strain include forceful vomiting, intense diarrhea and stomach cramps that are especially hard on children under 5, adults over 85, and those with underlying health conditions, according to the CDC. Dehydration is a primary risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because GII.17 is a new strain, people have less built-up immunity and may experience more severe illnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen new strains emerge, people are exposed to a strain that they have not previously been exposed to, and hence are more likely to get infected,\u201d Lee-Ann Jaykus, a professor in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences at North Carolina State University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHistorically, new strains emerge every seven to 10 years, and we were due for one, so this is not surprising,\u201d Jaykus said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vigorous hand-washing with hot water and soap and other good hygiene practices are crucial to limit the spread of norovirus. It spreads easily, either through direct contact with someone who is sick, eating food or drinking liquids contaminated with the virus, touching contaminated surfaces, and poor hand-washing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A nasty, highly contagious form of norovirus called \u201cwinter vomiting disease\u201d is spreading across the country, including in Florida, according to an analysis of wastewater at 13 surveillance sites in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMTJcL3VubmFtZWQud2VicD9maXQ9MTAyNCUyQzc2OCZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IkhpZ2hseSBDb250YWdpb3VzIE5vcm92aXJ1cyBTcHJlYWRpbmcgUmFwaWRseSBJbiBGTCIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.xJs7NQHz1GZrZltlamYLanN3YBZXJO7zAf844uqjLBUMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":59747,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[12804],"class_list":["post-59746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-highly-contagious-norovirus-spreading-rapidly-in-fl"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59748,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59746\/revisions\/59748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}