Am I right to be surprised my boss has never heard of Norovirus?

[HangryBrickShark]

He said he'd never heard of it before.

How weird is that?

Yes he's a thick cunt.

As an emetophobe, I envy him!!

Out of interest have you heard of everything in the world?

That's what I thought. It's constantly been hitting the headlines particuarly in the east of England where he's from and this area which is also bad so I'm really surprised he'd not heard of it and he has 5 kids in school, so thought it would would be on his radar.

I get irrationally annoyed when every upset stomach is norovirus.

It might be but could also be a number of other causes. D&V sufficed for many years.

In adults, noro is the most common cause of what people might call "stomach flu" so it's not wildly unreasonable for people to use it.

I've never said it, I think I'd probably say stomach bug, but I've heard of it. I don't really know if it's a specific illness or a general term for diarrhoea and sickness, so I'd be wary of using it.

I bet my parents won't be aware of its existence. I suspect I've only really heard it used on Mumsnet, I don't think I've come across it in real life.

Using it confidently as a diagnosis without the confirmation of lab work, as if there are no other viruses that cause the same symptoms, is a relatively new thing. We used to make do with 'an upset stomach' in the old days. Or, if we wanted to really impress our audience with how bad we felt, we'd call it 'gastroenteritis' or 'gastric flu'.

It's a very recent name and used totally inaccurately half the time. It used to just be called sickness and diarrhea, or if it was serious, gastroenteritis.

I think people just like scientific sounding words now.

I've neither children or elderly relatives and I heard if it years ago. Wasn't it in the news as hospital wards were shutting down because of it?
Have only recently heard of it as a more commonplace bug you might catch at home.

The only time I’ve ever heard of it is on Mumsnet. I’m not exactly sure what it is either.

It's only really been on my radar since being on MN. I don't have kids as of yet, so it's never really come up.

I have only seen it mentioned on this site in the last couple of years. I have never heard anyone in real life refer to "norovirus". Most people say "d & v" or just "tummy bug".

I felt that when I had to go off sick with food poisoning
Had to point out it wasn't a 24hr thing, it was diagnosed from a swab and I ended up unwell for nearly 2 weeks and still recovering 6 months later after my hair fell out from it

I’ve only heard of it on Mumsnet