Staying noro-free onboard

From time to time we read about norovirus on ships. Touch wood but we have not been affected by noro to date.

A common recurring preventative measure is to "wash hands with warm water and soap" .

How have you managed to keep Noro from spoiling your cruise vacation? Does it help to have a good immune system?

I'm thinking that an updated list of preventative measures would help newcomers and refresh strategies for regulars. We'd all benefit in the end.

Thanks for sharing your tips :)

I think you just have to use common sense. I don't believe you can completely avoid all germs as people still handle menus, touch the bottom of chairs, etc. It's not possible to avoid touching everything, so having a strong immune system is a plus. I wash my hands frequently and keep them away from my face or eyes in public.

I have been on 14 cruises and never gotten noro virous. But I do wash my hands very often. I even carry a small hand sanitizer to use after I take the stairs, or when a bathroom is not available for hand washing. I try and be very aware of my surroundings and my hand placement.

Just be aware that you are sharing spaces with a couple of thousand other people. Then just enjoy your cruise.:D

Lots of discussion here in the last few days.....

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2178542&highlight=noro

.....and I make sure never to eat with my hands.

I'm not particularly cautious about touching things although I won't touch elevator buttons of handrails before eating & have never gotten the Noro.

Plenty of colds though. You just can't avoid them.

Frequent and thorough hand washing is of course your best protection. I also use the alcohol-based hand sanitizer after each hand wash. Here's the theory, when you wash your hands you kill the norovirus but then you go to dinner and contract more norovirus. The alcohol hand sanitizer remains on the skin after application and has a prophylactic benefit. Alcohol-based hand sanitizer is not powerful enough to kill norovirus but it does have a preventative benefit.

A strong immune system is always helpful both in avoiding infection and recovering from an infection. Most people, myself included, over indulge while on a cruise. I also don't get enough restful sleep. All of the aforementioned will weaken your immune system surprisingly quickly. So my advice is take all things in moderation. Remember, happy people are healthy people. So happy cruising.

Lots of discussion here in the last few days.....

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2178542&highlight=noro

 

 

.....and I make sure never to eat with my hands.

Thanks for the link, chrysalis. It pays to read the boards thoroughly :o

Lots of discussion there about sanitizers.

You are far more likely to catch a cold or the flu than Noro.

Wash, wash, wash your hands with soap and water. If at all possible, use only your cabin bathroom. Avoid touching your face and mouth with your hands. If you get the flu or Noro, don't self-medicate and continue to mix with passengers. Let the Medical Center know, even if it means a quarantine. Infected people walking about the ship is how a virus spreads. Take responsibility and quarantine yourself if necessary.

Hand sanitizer will help with a bacterial infection but does little to prevent the spread of a virus.

Frequent and thorough hand washing is of course your best protection. I also use the alcohol-based hand sanitizer after each hand wash. Here's the theory, when you wash your hands you kill the norovirus but then you go to dinner and contract more norovirus. The alcohol hand sanitizer remains on the skin after application and has a prophylactic benefit. Alcohol-based hand sanitizer is not powerful enough to kill norovirus but it does have a preventative benefit.

A strong immune system is always helpful both in avoiding infection and recovering from an infection. Most people, myself included, over indulge while on a cruise. I also don't get enough restful sleep. All of the aforementioned will weaken your immune system surprisingly quickly. So my advice is take all things in moderation. Remember, happy people are healthy people. So happy cruising.

We wash our hands frequently, use alcohol based hand sanitizer often (keep a small bottle in our pockets) and use plastic disposable food service gloves when we go to the buffet and handle the serving utensils. We use a fresh one each time we return to the buffet. (Never use the same one twice) They sell them in bulk at SAMs and Costco's and are easy to pack because they virtually take up no room. May be a bit germaphobic but it's kept us healthy.

I'm not particularly cautious about touching things although I won't touch elevator buttons of handrails before eating & have never gotten the Noro.

Plenty of colds though. You just can't avoid them.

I touch stuff all the time. I wash but not obsessively. I hold onto handrails on the stairs as I figure that my odds of tripping or missing a step are greater than getting Noro. I do not disinfect my stateroom.

Just as with you, I also have never gotten Noro even though I have been on cruises that were code red for half the cruise.

Scientifically if you do not do something and you do not get sick, this proves nothing. It even proves nothing if you repeat the experiment several times. If you do something and you get sick, it suggests but does not prove that there may be a causal relationship between the 2 things. If you do exactly the same thing many times and eliminate all the other variablesand you get sick in the same way every time, it strongly suggests that there there is a relationship between the 2 action and the result. However, to totally prove it, you have to find out exactly what part of the action has caused the result.

I love the people who say that because they did not do something and did not get sick, this is a proof. That sort of logic would be laughed out of a pre-school science class.

DON

Washing your hands does not kill the virus, nor does hand sanitizer. Nothing kills the virus, although it may kill bacteria. the most important thing about washing hands is soaping up and the motions of rinsing under running water, flushing off the germs. EM

Frequent and thorough hand washing is of course your best protection. I also use the alcohol-based hand sanitizer after each hand wash. Here's the theory, when you wash your hands you kill the norovirus but then you go to dinner and contract more norovirus. The alcohol hand sanitizer remains on the skin after application and has a prophylactic benefit. Alcohol-based hand sanitizer is not powerful enough to kill norovirus but it does have a preventative benefit.

Generally, alcohol based sanitizers do not have persistence. That is, once the alcohol (the active ingredient) has evaporated and your hands have dried, there is no persistent coverage.

There are now a few new alcohol based sanitizers that also have a persistent active ingredient that can give further ongoing protection, but these are an exception - not the rule. Like this product that claims a persistence, made by Zylast ( http://www.zylast.com/ )

And true, after washing and/or sanitizing hands it is not hard to get them recontaminated. So keep your hands away from the mouth, and don't touch your food with your hands - even if it is only one chip! Hmmm that bread roll needs butter.....

btw, I wash hands and use a non-alcoholic sanitizer that does have a persistent ingredient ( benzalkonium chloride ) that remains active on the hands after drying.

From time to time we read about norovirus on ships. Touch wood but we have not been affected by noro to date.

 

A common recurring preventative measure is to "wash hands with warm water and soap" .

We just had a discussion about this topic a few weeks ago that included many viewpoints and links to scientific studies. I'm attaching it for your convenience:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2178542

Washing your hands does not kill the virus, nor does hand sanitizer. Nothing kills the virus, although it may kill bacteria. the most important thing about washing hands is soaping up and the motions of rinsing under running water, flushing off the germs. EM

One point though, there are some sanitizers that are effective against viruses, including the Noro virus. They generally are non alcohol based and contain the ingredients Benzethonium Chloride or Benzalkonium Chloride.

If Norovirus spores cannot enter your body, they cannot make you sick.

There are very few ways that Norovirus can get into your body; mouth, nose, eyes, ears (and very rarely - lungs).

On extremely rare occasions, if someone with NLV vomits near you, the viral spores are briefly aspirated and can enter your lungs as you breathe. This rarely happens. You need to be in the right place (very close) at the right (very short) time.

On rare occasions, it is possible that a food worker with NLV can contaminate your food without your knowledge. We hear about this on land when hundreds of restaurant patrons get sick at the same time. It very rarely happens on ships. The epidimiology curves we study when ships have outbreaks tell us that it is nearly always a few infected people who spread it to everyone else.

The other 99% of the time, people give Norovirus to themselves when they put potentially contaminated hands, food, or other objects into mouth, nose, eyes, or ears. It's that simple.

Despite the fact that everyone gets so excited about cleaning hands (it is VERY important), more attention needs to be paid to your own personal hygiene habits.

YOU NEED TO CONCENTRATE ON NOT GIVING NOROVIRUS TO YOURSELF.

Read that bolded sentence again. The vast majority of people who contract norovirus on ships have introduced the virus into their bodies with careless personal hygiene habits. In the 21st Century, it is nearly heresy to insist that people take responsibility for their own actions, but there you have it.

We know that there is no absolute immunity to Noroviruses.

Studies have shown that people with Type O blood seem to be more likely to become infected with lower doses of contamination.

The few unlucky people who had their food or air contaminated by infected people can't do much about that.

It is nearly impossible to avoid contamination.

But everyone can do plenty to avoid infection.

Most popular locations for infection and outbreaks:

Schools

Prisons

Hospitals

Old Age Homes

Airplanes

If you can avoid these places - or at least take extra precautions there - you are already ahead of the game.

Most popular Cruise Ship locations for infection and outbreaks:

#1. Buffets

#2. Public Toilets

If you can avoid these places (especially for the first 48 hours) - or at least take extra precautions there - you will most likely avoid infection.

Let's get back to personal hygiene.

I have been on over 1,400 cruises.

Long ago I lost count of the number of Code Red cruises I have been through.

I have been sent to many ships to assist in stopping existing outbreaks.

I have visited infected passengers in their staterooms on many occasions.

I have assisted vomiting passengers in wheelchairs down the gangway on many occasions.

Countless infected people shook my hand in countless receiving lines over 40 years.

I do not use hand sanitizers.

I wash my hands religiously VERY VERY often.

I do not eat from buffets.

I do not use public toilets.

Most importantly - I NEVER NEVER NEVER put my hands - clean or dirty - into my mouth, nose, eyes, or ears.

I have never had Norwalk Virus - because I refuse to give it to myself.

From time to time we read about norovirus on ships. Touch wood but we have not been affected by noro to date.

 

A common recurring preventative measure is to "wash hands with warm water and soap" .

 

How have you managed to keep Noro from spoiling your cruise vacation? Does it help to have a good immune system?

 

I'm thinking that an updated list of preventative measures would help newcomers and refresh strategies for regulars. We'd all benefit in the end.

 

Thanks for sharing your tips :)

Try not to use public restrooms. Go to your cabin. I see some questionable stuff going on in public restrooms. I went into detail about it here on CC and got attacked because I said a particular ethic person was doing the deed at the sink. That cured me right there from using public facilities. Keep your hands away from your face and try not to eat finger foods. Don't lick your fingers when eating and then go pick up a serving spoon at the buffet. You can sit and watch people licking their fingers, or eating off their plates while they go from station-to-station getting their food. Yes it's gross but people don't think anything of it. That's how noro is passed - oh and not washing your hands after using the restroom.

Wash hands well and frequently, avoid public washrooms where possible, abd I rarely go to the buffet.

We bring a hand sanitizer with us. Use it frequently and (so far) have avoided noro

We bring a hand sanitizer with us. Use it frequently and (so far) have avoided noro

Pockets and purses are two of the dirtiest places on your cruise.

Where do most passengers carry their bottle of hand sanitizer? Pocket or purse.

So you want to clean your hands with sanitizer.

You reach into your pocket or purse for the bottle. Now your hands are even more contaminated.

The outside or the sanitizer bottle is also contaminated.

You squirt the sanitizer on your hands and clean them.

Then you use your clean hands to pick up the contaminated sanitizer bottle and put it back into your contaminated pocket or purse.

Now your hands are more contaminated than when you started the process.

This is a prime example of how people give Norovirus to themselves and then blame the rest of the world.

Some great information in the previous posts! One thing that I didn't see mentioned was strongly encouraged by staff on a HAL cruise years ago. There had been Noro on the cruise just before ours, and they were hoping to avoid a repeat:

This might be a bit difficult for the less-OCD types, but I had little trouble with it. We were told to wash before dining, then use a "clean hand, dirty hand" method in the dining venues, as well as other areas of the ship. Your clean hand is used for hopefully clean items--your napkins, silverware, drinking glasses and food difficult to eat without touching. Your dirty hand was used for everything else--handling menus, pulling out your dining chair, catsup bottles, elevator buttons, etc.

Try not to use public restrooms. Go to your cabin. I see some questionable stuff going on in public restrooms. I went into detail about it here on CC and got attacked because I said a particular ethic person was doing the deed at the sink. That cured me right there from using public facilities. Keep your hands away from your face and try not to eat finger foods. Don't lick your fingers when eating and then go pick up a serving spoon at the buffet. You can sit and watch people licking their fingers, or eating off their plates while they go from station-to-station getting their food. Yes it's gross but people don't think anything of it. That's how noro is passed - oh and not washing your hands after using the restroom.

So true!

The licking of the fingers and then continuing on thru the buffet line! It has been my pet peeve for years! It is so gross and I'll bet I have seen it on every cruise I've been on.

Knock wood we only had Noro once. However, it wasn't on a ship we were at home.

 

Scientifically if you do not do something and you do not get sick, this proves nothing. It even proves nothing if you repeat the experiment several times. If you do something and you get sick, it suggests but does not prove that there may be a causal relationship between the 2 things. If you do exactly the same thing many times and eliminate all the other variablesand you get sick in the same way every time, it strongly suggests that there there is a relationship between the 2 action and the result. However, to totally prove it, you have to find out exactly what part of the action has caused the result.

 

I love the people who say that because they did not do something and did not get sick, this is a proof. That sort of logic would be laughed out of a pre-school science class.

 

I use hand sanitizer before every meal at home and since I have done this ever since I moved to my current home, there has never been an alligator in my yard.

Are you trying to tell me that the reason there have never been alligators in my yard is not because I use hand sanitizer before every meal?

From time to time we read about norovirus on ships. Touch wood but we have not been affected by noro to date.

 

A common recurring preventative measure is to "wash hands with warm water and soap" .

 

How have you managed to keep Noro from spoiling your cruise vacation? Does it help to have a good immune system?

 

I'm thinking that an updated list of preventative measures would help newcomers and refresh strategies for regulars. We'd all benefit in the end.

 

Thanks for sharing your tips :)

You have it down perfect. Wash your hands often, and keep you hands away from your face.

I use hand sanitizer before every meal at home and since I have done this ever since I moved to my current home, there has never been an alligator in my yard.

 

Are you trying to tell me that the reason there have never been alligators in my yard is not because I use hand sanitizer before every meal?

Have you tried not using hand sanitizer and seeing what happens?

DON