The norovirus, a hyper-contagious stomach bug, is sweeping across the Northeast, causing schools to shutter and citizens to suffer from violent diarrhea and other alarming symptoms.
“It is incredibly contagious,” Dr. Alfred Sacchetti from Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Camden, NJ, told ABC News. “Just one particle of the norovirus that you ingest will get you sick.”
Recent data from the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention shows that the Northeast — particularly Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York — has the highest positivity rate for the hypervirulent strain.
A staggering 14% of swab tests in the region came back positive for the gastrointestinal ailment at the beginning of February. That was up from around 12% two weeks earlier and just 4% in November before the epidemic.
“My 2-year-old was dealing with some stomach issues last week; his whole daycare seems to be having issues,” said Cherry Hill, NJ, resident Jacob Joyner, whose household was stricken with the illness.
And it’s not just those portions of the mid-Atlantic region that have been plagued. The norovirus is also on the rise nationwide, with 12% of tests returning positive, marking a 3% increase from November.
Unfortunately, the stomach bug — of which there are multiple varieties — is reportedly the leading cause of acute gastroenteritis — or gastrointestinal issues — in the US, resulting in 19 to 21 million cases every year, according to the CDC.
Cases generally spike around February and March when people are most likely to be holed up indoors and, therefore, are in close proximity to one another.
Sufferers commonly contract the virus by ingesting contaminated foods and liquids, touching tainted surfaces and interacting with people infected with the virus.
According to the CDC, people who get it from other people generally do so by caring for them, sharing food or eating utensils with them, or eating food handled by them.
