Ack! a NEW Stomach Virus!

[lemontree]

It was a NEW stomach virus that made all those people on that cruise ship sick! That's what I woke up to this morning being reported by most news outlets. Being true to my emetophobia my immediate reaction was, "Ack! A NEW Stomach Virus!!!." My anxiety immediately went up as my mind raced with a plethora of emetophobic scary thoughts: What KIND of NEW stomach virus is it??? If it's NEW I've never been exposed to it so I have zero resistance to it. It's probably some freakish super-bug stomach flu!.... etc etc etc.

And then as I started googling like a mad person to find out more, I found out that it's a newER strain of norovirus - the Sydney strain - which has been around for a couple of years so chances are most people - including me - have probably been exposed to it in one way or another without even knowing it and been just fine. So I calmed down.

So what's the point of this post? To point out how the media LOVES to exaggerate things and often mis-reports facts. That's why I stopped following the news reports about how bad the flu is every year. I'm going to do the same with reports of norovirus and take what the news reports with a grain of salt. That'll be better for my mental health for sure!

Anyway, thanks for reading and for letting me vent. Stupid media!!!! Grrrrrr.

[jkl81]

Yeah good observation. The media needs a story to be sensational so it will grab your attention as you well know.

[Pigatron]

Totally. The news media loooooves this kind of stuff. The worst is when their excitement over the story leads to exaggeration and half-truths. Although, one of the headlines I saw regarding the cruise ship thing was pretty funny: "Terror on the High Seas!" That's about right!

[lemontree]

"Terror on the High Seas!"

It should read, "Terror on The Emetophobia Message Boards!" lol

[MaybeBaby]

Media likes to hype it up to get everyone scared. Which for non emets, that might be not too bad of an idea. Get them to check their hygiene. Not many people know exactly how it's spread, or that normal alcohol based hand sanitizers don't kill the virus. But for emets the hype just further terrifies us.

[Grace47]

Terror on the high seas like they're being attacked by pirates.

[toniintro]

Yeah, I was startled when I read this news . Then when I realized that it was a norovirus strain Sydney became clear to me that this strain is known for two years . Just create further tensions among people in the midst of flu season , which anyway is heavy.
Normally when crowding many people together to deliver fast norovirus infection . Norovirust is one of the most contagious viruses that cause gastroenteritis known as stomach flu .
Moreover norovirus is known as virus who failing cruises for many years . This is nothing new.