The Dreaded Stomach Flu

Lets talk more about the "stomach flu" better known as the Norwalk virus, which is the prototype strain of human caliciviruses named for the first town the epidemic was noted in, in 1972. It has a beautiful structure seen here:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16641296. The are not exactly sure how it replicates according to a study done in 2002, it fails to grow on cell substrate in labs.

Believe it or not, people voluntarily infected themselves at Baylor College of Medicine so that it's viral shedding duration through feces could be documented (2008). In case you thought those first 2 days were the period of highest infection risk, you're probably right but "Virus shedding was first detected by antigen ELISA approximately 33 hours (median 42 hours) after inoculation and lasted 10 days (median 7 days) after inoculation."http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18826818 In other words, please don't go getting all relaxed about it, there is some documentation that shedding begins as early as the incubation period ( about 10-60 hours before you get sick). It generally lasts about 24-48 hours, and you can communicate the disease actively for 48 hours after resolution. 
So how do you get rid of it when you need 2 parts/mil to get sick? Well good luck with that. You can use a steam cleaner, but the norwalk virus survives regular temps of heating to 60ºC for 30 minutes, so it has to be a real steam cleaner. According to Public Health Saftey of Canada, (data sheets available here: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/lab…/…/psds-ftss/msds112e-eng.php) you come up with this: "SUSCEPTIBILITY TO DISINFECTANTS: Susceptible to 1% sodium hypochlorite, 2% glutaraldehyde" That's it folks. 
So now you know what kills it, you're not sure how to get that dilution. If you are starting with 5% household bleach, you dilute 1 part bleach to 4 equal parts clean water.

Hope this clears up some of the conversation I've had with multiple sick folks!