Tag Archives: handwash

Proper handwashing requires proper tools: Alton Brown’s handwashing tutorial is funny, informative, and a little bit gory

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Everyone says wash your hands in the wake of Coronavirus.

But proper handwashing requires proper tools.

I go to my local grocery store (when I’m let out of the house, and usually only with a carerer) and the bathroom for the shops has these stupid Dysan machines that just blow microbes around.

I got my job at Kansas State in 2005 because their handwashing thingies just blew stuff around, I wrote something up, they hired me, I did enough work to become full professor, and then they fired me.

Whatever.

Every time there is some weird outbreak at a local school, the first thing I do is check out the bathrooms – that’s right, I’m the creepy guy watching you kids wash their hands – and invariably they have no soap and no paper towel (the later is required for the friction).

Even the 20 seconds is probably overstating things: Can you imagine working in food service and having to wash your hands for 20-30 seconds every time you did something food safety risky?

You can keep imagining because you wouldn’t be working long.

Yes, wash your hands, my daughters have all had this engrained in them, but keep the messaging on a level people might actually follow.

Good Eats host Alton Brown is here to explain it in a 4-plus minute video that illustrates why soap is a solid line of defense against viruses, that demonstrates how to wash every square inch of your mitts, and that wraps up with one of the most surprising endings you’ll see outside of an M. Night Shyamalan flick.

“I’m happy that someone finally wants to talk about handwashing,” he says within the first minute. “I’ve been wanting to do a handwashing video for twenty years, but everybody was like ‘Oh no, hygiene’s boring, do cheese pulls.’ What do you think is going to save us now? Cheese pulls, nanorobots, lasers, hot yoga? I don’t think so.”

We did one 20 years ago.

So yeah, what might give us a shot at getting through… all of this is a bar of soap. (Regular soap, Brown emphasizes, not hand sanitizer. “Not the stuff you’ve been fighting over in drugstore parking lots,” he adds.)

Brown says that he actually travels with his own bar of soap, carrying it with him in a small tin. He also keeps his own zip-sealed bag of paper towels handy, to ensure that he can dry his hands properly too. (So take that, Dyson Airblade!) His handwashing technique takes a full 30 seconds to complete, and he adds a few ticks to the 20-second-minimum wash that has previously been suggested. He goes through a number of steps, for the front and backs of the hands, in-between the fingers, and under the nails. There are a lot of five-counts, but it works. And if that fails to do the job? Well, that’s where Brown’s sense of humor takes a darker turn.

I carry a tip-sensitive digital thermometer wherever I go.

Trump gets his news here: Fox News host says he has not washed his hands in 10 years ‘Germs are not a real thing’

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To the chagrin of his co-hosts, Fox and Friends presenter Pete Hegseth told the show’s audience Sunday morning that he hasn’t washed his hands in a decade.

Katherine Hignett of Newsweek writes the revelation came after co-hosts Ed Henry and Jedediah Bila questioned Hegseth’s off-camera consumption of pizza left out after National Pizza Day Saturday. Hegseth had argued that pizza “lasts for a long time.”

Bila then quipped Hegseth “might take a chomp out of” anything on a table “that’s not nailed down”—including mugs.

“My 2019 resolution is to say things on air that I say off air… I don’t think I’ve washed my hands for 10 years. Really, I don’t really wash my hands ever,” Hegseth continued, prompting laughter from his co-hosts.

“Someone help me,” Bila said. “Oh man.”

“I inoculate myself. Germs are not a real thing. I can’t see them. Therefore the’re not real,” Hegseth said.  

“So you’re becoming immune to all of the bacteria,” Bila replied, rolling her eyes. “My dad has that theory too.”

Hegseth later shared a Tweet in support of his unusual concept of health and hygiene with the hashtag “DontWash.”

But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that handwashing is a vital way to prevent the transmission of disease. By washing your hands—especially after using the bathroom—you prevent the spread of harmful bacteria like Salmonella and E.coli that can persist in tiny, invisible particles of human feces. 

It’s also important to wash your hands after handling raw meat, as this can harbor germs leftover from animal feces.

“A single gram of human feces—which is about the weight of a paper clip—can contain one trillion germs,” the CDC reports.

Filion, K., KuKanich, K.S., Chapman, B., Hardigree, M.K., and Powell, D.A. 2011. Observation-based evaluation of hand hygiene practices and the effects of an intervention at a public hospital cafeteria. American Journal of Infection Control 39(6): 464-470.

Background

Hand hygiene is important before meals, especially in a hospital cafeteria where patrons may have had recent contact with infectious agents. Few interventions to improve hand hygiene have had measureable success. This study was designed to use a poster intervention to encourage hand hygiene among health care workers (HCWs) and hospital visitors (HVs) upon entry to a hospital cafeteria.

Methods

Over a 5-week period, a poster intervention with an accessible hand sanitizer unit was deployed to improve hand hygiene in a hospital cafeteria. The dependent variable observed was hand hygiene attempts. Study phases included a baseline, intervention, and follow-up phase, with each consisting of 3 randomized days of observation for 3 hours during lunch.

Results

During the 27 hours of observation, 5,551 participants were observed, and overall hand hygiene frequency was 4.79%. Hygiene attempts occurred more frequently by HCWs than HVs (P = .0008) and females than males (P = .0281). Hygiene attempts occurred more frequently after poster introduction than baseline (P = .0050), and this improvement was because of an increase in frequency of HV hand hygiene rather than HCW hand hygiene.

Conclusion

The poster intervention tool with easily accessible hand sanitizer can improve overall hand hygiene performance in a US hospital cafeteria.

Wilson, S.M., Jacob, C.J. and Powell, D.A. 2011. Behavior-change interventions to improve hand hygiene practice: A review. Critical Public Health 21: 119-127.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a934338802~db=all~jumptype=rss

Despite the role of hand hygiene in preventing infectious disease, compliance remains low. Education and training are often cited as essential to developing and maintaining hand-hygiene compliance, but generally have not produced sustained improvements. Consequently, this literature review was conducted to identify alternative interventions for compelling change in hand-hygiene behavior. Of those, interventions employing social pressures have demonstrated varying influence on an individual’s behavior, while interventions that focus on organizational culture have demonstrated positive results. However, recent research indicates that handwashing is a ritualized behavior mainly performed for self-protection. Therefore, interventions that provoke emotive sensations (e.g., discomfort, disgust) or use social marketing may be the most effective.

Blame the kids: 20 sick at Hong Kong kindergarten

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The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health is investigating an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) at a kindergarten in Tseung Kwan O, and hence reminded the public and management of institutions to maintain personal and environmental hygiene against AGE.
The outbreak involves 20 students, comprising 13 boys and seven girls aged 2 to 5, as well as two female staff members, who have developed vomiting, diarrhea and fever since November 4. Among them, seven students and one staff member sought medical attention, while one was discharged upon hospitalisation. All affected persons have been in a stable condition.

Officers of the CHP conducted a site visit and provided health advice to the staff of the school concerning proper and thorough disinfection, the disposal of vomit, and personal and environmental hygiene.

Shigellosis outbreak in Flint, Mich. because people afraid to wash hands

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Don’t eat poop (and if you do, make sure it’s cooked).

Wash your hands.

handwash_south_park2These are the basics of public health.

Most of us are taught from a very early age that hand-washing is an easy, essential way of keeping ourselves clean and healthy. But residents of Flint, Michigan and surrounding areas have been forgoing this common practice out of fear of the water’s toxicity. Genesee county, of which Flint is a the largest city, and the adjacent county of Saginaw combined have experienced an outbreak of 131 cases of Shigellosis (named after the bacteria that causes it, Shigella). It’s a bloody diarrheal disease transmitted via tiny amounts of contaminated fecal matter. It typically lasts about a week, but can also cause patients to feel like they have to go to the bathroom even when they have no more waste in their systems. Additionally, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) also notes that “may be several months before [patients] bowel habits are entirely normal.”

In 2013, there were just under five cases reported per every 100,000 people in America. The outbreak in Michigan far exceeds that number, and it’s likely because residents in the area are afraid to use their tap water, which was found to have toxic levels of lead, a heavy metal that can cause neurological problems when it builds up in the body, in 2015. Even though the water was deemed safe for consumption with a proper filter, people in the area are still scared to wash their hands at all, according to the Washington Post.

Instead, they’re cleaning themselves using baby wipes—aren’t nearly as effective as disinfectant as good old-fashioned scrubbing—which should take about 20 seconds to ensure that any potential pathogens are washed down the drain.

“Some people have mentioned that they’re not going to expose their children to the water again,” Jim Henry, Genesee County’s environmental health supervisor, told CNN.

 

Jersey restaurants’ 4-strike rule: Hamilton considers stiff fines, closure for failed health inspections

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In an attempt to make sure restaurant workers are washing their hands and keeping the kitchen clean, Hamilton officials are preparing to bring the hammer down on restaurant owners who frequently violate health codes.

jon.stewart.handwashing.2002The township council on Tuesday is scheduled to introduce an ordinance that would stiffen penalties for restaurants with a history of failing health inspections, imposing fines as much as three times the current amount and imposing mandatory closures.

Under the current model, restaurants that receive a “conditionally satisfactory” rating, which denotes health issues that need to be addressed, are charged a $250 reinspection fee after each of their second, third and fourth consecutive violations.

After four consecutive violations, the restaurant is shut down until the violations are resolved. Kenji Fusion and China Grill were both shut down for brief periods earlier this year after failing three consecutive inspections.

Township health officer Jeff Plunkett said that some businesses do not take the $250 fee seriously: One owner simply tried to hand a health inspector $250 in cash from his wallet.

“We’ve come to the conclusion that people just pay it,” Plunkett said in February.

The new ordinance would impose steps in the reinspection fees: $250 on the second consecutive offense, $500 on the third and and $750 on the fourth. After four consecutive offenses, the township will shut down the restaurant for a minimum of two days — even if the violations are resolved quickly.

“You keep trying to educate the ownership that they have a responsibility to every customer who walks through their door. It cannot be taken lightly.”

You can hold my koala but not wash your hands

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Sunday in Brisbane (that’s in Australia) was a perfect chance to discover the local wildlife: kangaroos and koalas at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Emma and Sorenne were overly excited by the opportunity. When it was their turn to get their photo taken with the koala, however, I noticed the sign on the hand sanitizer station saying, “Out of Order. Sorry for any inconvenience.” As we exited the area into the food court, Emma grabbed some sanitizing wipes that were available (but unmarked and almost not noticeable) on a table and cleaned up Sorenne’s hands the best she could.

After our afternoon “tea” (that’s Australian for “snack”), we headed into the Kangaroo Rescue area. For $2 I bought a rather large bag of kangaroo feed, and we proceeded to shove our hands into the faces of every kangaroo who passed by. Emma was brave and lay down on the ground to pose with one of the big boys. For me the highlight was either seeing a pregnant mommy ‘roo whose joey was wiggling about in her pouch or watching Sorenne’s face light up when the baby kangaroos ate from her hands (right exactly as shown).

Upon exiting the area (which was filled with scrub turkeys, ducks, wombats, emus and feces in addition to the kangaroos), there was a handwashing station with ample running cold water and soap but no paper towel to dry hands. The park prides itself on reusing water, and there was clear signage indicating that all water in use was recycled except for handwashing, food preparation, and drinking water. I didn’t feel confident that they were able to separate distribution so well after realizing that handwashing wasn’t possible in the koala cuddling zone.

Handwashing really isn’t simple, especially when the proper tools are not available.
 

You can hold my koala but not wash your hands

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Sunday in Brisbane (that’s in Australia) was a perfect chance to discover the local wildlife: kangaroos and koalas at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Emma and Sorenne were overly excited by the opportunity. When it was their turn to get their photo taken with the koala, however, I noticed the sign on the hand sanitizer station saying, “Out of Order. Sorry for any inconvenience.” As we exited the area into the food court, Emma grabbed some sanitizing wipes that were available (but unmarked and almost not noticeable) on a table and cleaned up Sorenne’s hands the best she could.

After our afternoon “tea” (that’s Australian for “snack”), we headed into the Kangaroo Rescue area. For $2 I bought a rather large bag of kangaroo feed, and we proceeded to shove our hands into the faces of every kangaroo who passed by. Emma was brave and lay down on the ground to pose with one of the big boys. For me the highlight was either seeing a pregnant mommy ‘roo whose joey was wiggling about in her pouch or watching Sorenne’s face light up when the baby kangaroos ate from her hands (right exactly as shown).

Upon exiting the area (which was filled with scrub turkeys, ducks, wombats, emus and feces in addition to the kangaroos), there was a handwashing station with ample running cold water and soap but no paper towel to dry hands. The park prides itself on reusing water, and there was clear signage indicating that all water in use was recycled except for handwashing, food preparation, and drinking water. I didn’t feel confident that they were able to separate distribution so well after realizing that handwashing wasn’t possible in the koala cuddling zone.

Handwashing really isn’t simple, especially when the proper tools are not available.
 

Promote handwashing at petting zoos and farms or no school visits

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In the fall of 1998, I accompanied one of my five daughters on a kindergarten trip to the farm. After petting the animals and touring the crops — I questioned the fresh manure on the strawberries –we were assured that all the food produced was natural. We then returned for unpasteurized apple cider.

The host served the cider in a coffee urn, heated, so my concern about it being unpasteurized was abated. I asked: "Did you serve the cider heated because you heard about other outbreaks and were concerned about liability?" She responded, "No. The stuff starts to smell when it’s a few weeks old and heating removes the smell."??

I’m all for farm visits, local markets, petting zoos, but I want the operators to have a clue about the dangerous bugs that make people – especially little kids – sick.

What I haven’t written about before is that I called the local board of education after the farm visit and insisted the specific farm be removed from future school visits because it was obvious the operators were clueless about the dangerous microorganisms that can sicken kids.

And it happens a lot.

The U.K. Health Protection Agency reported today in Emerging Infectious Disease that it recorded 55 outbreaks of gastrointestinal diseases, such as E.coli and cryptosporidium between 1992 and 2009.

Lead author Dr Fraser Gormley, a HPA epidemiologist, said,

"Handwashing is the single most important prevention step in reducing transmission of gastrointestinal infections after handling animals and it’s crucial that handwashing in young children should be supervised, especially after touching or petting animals or their surroundings on a visit to a farm."

Those ‘Visitors Must Wash Hands’ signs are not enough. Operators need to take this seriously. So do education officials who send kids to substandard farms. If farms and petting zoos want to make money off school visits, they should actively promote handwashing and microbial awareness; if not, no school visits.

The report is available here.

Brit kids avoid school toilets because of dirt and bullies; hard to wash hands

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U.K. children are deterred from using school toilets in secondary schools because they are dirty – and occupied by smokers and bullies, a survey warns.

BBC reports that a quarter of the 300 children surveyed by experts from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said they avoided toilets if at all possible.

Speaking before Friday’s Global Handwashing Day, the scientists said facilities were "dirty and inadequate."

More than a third (36%) said their toilets were never clean, with 42% saying soap was only available sometimes, and almost a fifth (19%) said there was never any soap.

Nearly 40% of secondary school girls reported ”holding it in” so they didn’t have to go to the toilet.

And 16% of secondary school boys reported "bad things" happening in the toilets, making them wary of going in there.

Around 150 primary school children were also questioned in the survey, but they reported far fewer problems with their toilets.

Dr Val Curtis, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Hygiene Centre, who led the research, said,

"It would be easy to blame laziness on the part of the kids for this state of affairs, but clearly the problem lies with inadequate and dirty facilities, particularly in secondary schools."

Proper handwashing requires access to proper tools.