Here’s what you need to know to keep yourself healthy this January

LEXINGTON, S.C. — It’s officially that time of year again when everyone seems to be coughing and sneezing. Doctors said on Monday said they’re noticing an increase in illnesses including flu, RSV, norovirus and pneumonia. 

Norovirus specifically is something we’re hearing a lot more about this year, and according to data from the CDC, the number of outbreaks is higher this year than they’ve been in the last 11 years. 

“We’re talking about it this year because there seems to be about double the number of cases that we normally see each winter and combined with the fact that flu season this year has also been a little bit more intense, it just is helping the community and people understand, hey if you’re sick, there’s a whole lot of other people sick,” said Dr. Brenna Brucker, chief of emergency medicine at Lexington Medical Center. 

Dr. Brucker said right now she’s very frequently seeing multiple cases of suspected norovirus during her ER shifts. 

“Norovirus is a virus and it’s really, really contagious, which makes it be one of the extremely common things that we see in winter when people are close together. And it lives a long time on surfaces and unfortunately, the hand sanitizer that kills a lot of other viruses doesn’t get norovirus. When you see the bottles that say kills 99.9% of viruses, unfortunately norovirus is not one of those viruses,” Dr. Brucker said. 

She explained the best prevention is hand washing, washing your fruits and vegetables and regularly disinfecting doorknobs and handles. 

If you do catch it, Dr. Brucker said the symptoms are vomiting and four to eight episodes of diarrhea. Then you’ll be sick for two to three days, but she said you can stay contagious for two days after, and even have norovirus particles in your saliva or stool for up to two weeks. 

Dr. Brucker said you’ll need to visit her in the emergency department if you’re weak and not able to keep food or liquids down.

As for other illnesses, “This year, in general, we’ve had a really bad mycoplasma season. So typically, mycoplasma is that bacteria that cause what we traditionally know as walking pneumonia. But this year it seems like it’s been a little bit more severe,” said Dr. Anna Kathryn Burch, pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Prisma Health. 

“It’s a bad flu season. It’s a normal COVID season. It’s a bad RSV season,” said Dr. Helmut Albrecht, chief of medicine for Prisma Health Richland.

The best advice these doctors can give?

“Protect yourself, protect others, get vaccinated and wash your hands,” Dr. Albrecht said. “Before you touch anybody else and before you touch your eyes, your mouth or your nose, wash your hands or don’t touch your face.”

If you do catch norovirus, these doctors said after about five days of being sick, make sure you wash and dry your towels and sheets on the highest heat setting for the longest amount of time.