I'm inventing a new word today. It applies to that captivating story about the catering company which allowed a gastro outbreak to unleash.

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It poisoned 64 guests and sent four people to the emergency department. The bug was norovirus - so many people read about this that the story went noro-viral. Sorry.

The weird thing about the timing of the outbreak was that it was in 2022 when I thought we were still in peak handwashing time.

Turns out no. Our adherence to those incredible handwashing protocols we developed during COVID didn't last long.

Just observe what goes on the next time you are at the basin in a public toilet. It's more of a wave and flick.

Remember when we booped out two lots of soap from the soap dispenser and then sang Happy Birthday twice while we interlocked our fingers and scrubbed down to our wrists.

Then we carefully towel dried our hands so we didn't open the bathroom door with wet hands and avoided the blow dryer like the plague.

One of the ways to avoid the plague is to avoid the aerosol droplets which comes from those air hand dryers. I bet you didn't know that hospitals don't have those blower things in clinical settings because health workers want to avoid killing us.

No social distancing. The woman behind me in the queue at the bakers was so close I thought she was trying to hump me.

Endless handshaking from sweaty men. Folks have forgotten how to cough into their elbows. As for supermarkets, remember the glory days when trolleys were wiped down on the reg.

Sadly, gone are those days of care and concern for others. Gone.

It takes a pandemic to make us take hygiene seriously.

Norovirus lives among us all the time - and........

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