The winter virus Californians didn’t circle on their calendars appears to be the one turning up first.
Health officials are tracking an unusually early surge of norovirus — often called “winter vomiting disease” — with wastewater readings and lab tests showing the stomach bug gaining ground across California and the broader West weeks ahead of its typical peak.
California isn’t one of the reporting states, but rising concentrations of the virus have been detected in wastewater at dozens of treatment plants, including several in the Bay Area, since October…