Friday, April 24, 2015 $1 YOUR NEWSPAPER
[email protected] • www.courier-herald.com Drawer B, Court Square Station, Dublin, Georgia 31040 • 272-5522 Volume 101, No. 97, Pub. No 161860 The Courier HeraldGHSA: EL Norovirus shutters county schools boys hoops Roughly 150-160 students What is Norovirus? sent home sick Thursday to forfeit Norovirus is a very contagious virus. One can get norovirus from an in- By PAYTON TOWNS III fected person, contaminated food or water, or by touching contaminated sur- All Laurens County Schools and the Central Office will be faces. The virus causes your stomach or intestines or both to get inflamed season closed today due to what officials believe is the Norovirus. (acute gastroenteritis). This leads you to have stomach pain, nausea, and di- At the end of the school day Thursday, Laurens County Su- arrhea and to throw up. perintendent Rob Johnson made the decision to cancel school to- Anyone can be infected with norovirus and get sick. Also, you Student transported by day so that officials could disinfect and sanitize all of the county can have norovirus illness many times in your life. Norovirus illness can be se- schools, the Central Office and the school buses. rious, especially for young children and older adults. "This will give us an opportunity to sanitize the schools," Norovirus is the most common cause of acute gastroenteritis in the United coach from Dublin district, Johnson said. "They can't be there when it's being done. Those States. Each year, it causes 19-21 million illnesses and contributes to sanitizing the schools will have the proper equipment to use the 56,000-71,000 hospitalizations and 570-800 deaths.