Here is what I have done (I wasn't as sick as kiddos either):
• wiped all doorknobs, door frames and entire bathrooms down with straight vinegar
• laundered linens in hot water with vinegar rinse (temps over 158 degrees for 5 min will effectively kill noroviruses or 210 degrees for 1 min)
• running the bath toys through the dishwasher (if I still had a kiddo who mouthed lots of toys, I would probably run lots of the other plastic ones through, too. Actually, I might do that anyway.)
• regular deep cleaning stuff -- mopping the floors, wiping down the kitchen, etc
• be even more careful with safe food handling practices (washing hands and all hard surfaces before and after food prep), changing dish cloths several times a day, etc.
It likely is a
norovirus, which means those infected are still shedding the virus for anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks (per CDC). FWIW, this is probably the same virus that is going around the
county (and
Durham). Noroviruses are extremely contagious.
The CDC recommends disinfecting with bleach (even though I am not). Here is a
community health handout about the dilutions of bleach to use, if you go that route. If you use bleach solutions, don't spray and then wipe (
one of tons of citations); mix a fresh batch for each application and apply with a rag. Leave on for 10-20 minutes and then rinse with water.
However, noroviruses can handle fairly high concentrations of chlorine, and I am not really sure the trade offs are worth it since the kiddos are just going to keep shedding the virus. Hospitals also use a form of hydrogen peroxide to disinfect from noroviruses.
On hard surfaces, the virus lasts 12 hours; it has been found to live for
12 days on carpet. Looks like steam cleaning would be the only way to get rid of it, if that was the goal.
Transmission rates -- even with hypervigilant safety measures -- have been documented at 2.1 per infected person. Among youth without those measures, one infected person can/does infect 14 others. Here is
one recent peer reviewed study of the effectiveness of enhanced hygiene to control a norovirus outbreak. Spoiler: it helps, but not enough to end the outbreak.
At least it is short lived! And, from what I understand, reinfection is rare. Immunity to that strain lasts at least several months.
For me, I guess it came down to this: I will continue to clean/deep clean and will even do so a bit more deeply than normal, but everyone infected is going to keep shedding the virus for days. Everyone in our house has already been infected, and we likely won't re-infect ourselves. Our goal at this point is to not infect anyone else, which deep cleaning while still shedding isn't going to really help.
HTH
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