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Are your hands really clean?
Up to 80% of communicable diseases are transferred by touch.
Only 20% of people wash their hands before preparing food.
6 Seconds: Most people wash their hands for this long.
20 seconds is the minimum amount of time for handwashing according to the CDC.
When to wash
So when do we need to be serious about handwashing? Here’s a list:
- Before eating food
- Before and after any care for someone who is sick or touching someone who is sick
- Before and after treating a wound or skin abrasion
- After using the toilet
- After coughing or sneezing
- After touching any animal, animal food, or animal waste
- After touching garbage
Do sanitizers work?
When you’re at work, it can be hard to stop after each cough or rubbing your nose and go wash your hands. While there is no substitute for warm water and soap, alcohol-based hand sanitizers can sometimes be as effective as a basic handwashing. The biggest flaw with hand sanitizers is actually in user error.
How do you use hand sanitizers correctly?
- Pour a small amount into one hand, and close the bottle and put it away before anything else.
- First! Dab your fingertips into the sanitizer so it gets into the ugly underside of your nails where germs can collect.
- Rub the sanitizer all over both hands, between your fingers, and to the place where your shirt cuffs start.
- Allow your hands to DRY COMPLETELY before you go back to touching anything else. Wet hands pick up germs, even when they’re wet with alcohol, and it’s bad to expose live germs to an anti-bacterial agent. Live germs “learn” and build up a tolerance.
Do you wash your hands every time you should? Read more about proper cleaning on our blog and call Ecosource LLC for more information on office cleaning best practices!
