Washing your hands before touching food, eating, or touching your face will greatly reduce the amount of germs that cause illnesses from getting inside you. washing your hands with an alcohol based hand rub (ABR) (contraining 60% or greater alcohol) is now considered the gold standard for hand hygiene, use enough that when you rub your hands vigourisly for 30 seconds that all the gel or foam is dried. (Ethanol is better against virus, but isopropyl is a common type of hand rub too)
washing hands with soap and water will remove germs if done propery with any liquid soap (bar soap is better then nothing but not prefered). (30 second scrubbing all parts of your hands, including knife edge, between fingers, finger tips, palms/back of hands) and risne thoroughly.
keep your hands away from your nose, mouth and eyes! germs enter your body through these areas, don't touch the triangle area from your nose to your the sides of your chin (where a hospital mask would cover). . .sometimes called "triangle of death" or rub your eyes without first washing your hands.
this is always important because there are always germs laying around, but more so during flu season when there is a heavy burden of cold and flu viruses in the area. remember people are dirty, so wash your hands. . . teach your kids this. . .
(as a side note, during the 2009 pandemic, we found out some interesting facts. it was believe that during a new flu bug pandemic that the old seasonal flu kinda disappeared, and it was thought that the flu disappeared during the warmer seasons all together. but when testing many more people during the summer months, we found out that not only was there heavy burdens of pandemic flu bugs but also of seasonal flu, showing us that while season flu drops in the summer months, it does not disappear completely. and many "viral" infections may be influenzia and not just some random "viris" passing through town)
flu shots and pnuemovac shots. . .
there are many good reasons for getting these shots, but no matter what i say, some of you will be against them. there are some good reasons for NOT getting the shots, but again this is a personal choice. . .get the shots, don't get the shots. . . it's up to public health to convince you. (but you should 😆 )
always wash your hands after using the washroom.
norwalk virus are not killed by alcohol rub so use soap and water if "gastro" (diarrhea) norwalk, or norwalk like virus are in your area, or in your house.
MRSA and VRE (super bugs) are killed by alcohol, as well as C-diff (although there is an old belief c-diff should be washed down the drain)
it's late i'm tired, if you spot an error or omission please point it out. . .
some fun facts:
Information on Hygiene
•It is estimated that washing hands with soap and water could reduce diarrheal disease-associated deaths by up to 50% (1).
•Researchers in London estimate that if everyone routinely washed their hands, a million deaths a year could be prevented (2).
•A large percentage of foodborne disease outbreaks are spread by contaminated hands. Appropriate hand washing practices can reduce the risk of foodborne illness and other infections (3).
•Handwashing can reduce the risk of respiratory infections by 16% (4).
•The use of an alcohol gel hand sanitizer in the classroom provided an overall reduction in absenteeism due to infection by 19.8% among 16 elementary schools and 6,000 students (5).
•More than 50% of healthy persons have Staphylococcus aureus living in or on their nasal passages, throats, hair, or skin (6).
•Within the first 15 minutes of bathing, the average person sheds 6 x 106 colony forming units (CFU) of Staphylococcus aureus (7).
•The average individual swimmer contributes at least 0.14 grams of fecal material to the water, usually within the first 15 minutes of entering (8). Showering with soap before swimming helps stop the spread of germs by removing fecal material from the body.
•Trachoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness worldwide, is related to the lack of facial hygiene (9).
http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/hygiene/fast_facts.html
adsum. . . aut viam inveniam aut faciam
I have a horrible habit of chewing my nails when I am in deep thought or concerned. However I seem to wash my hands before doing it and after. Haven't had a cold in 5 years or the flu in 23 years. I have seen people take a shit and not as much as even use water (not that it does anything on its own) and walk out. Remember that the next time you grab anything off the shelf, or produce. YUK.....People are gross disgusting creatures. IMO of course.
I'll never forget a commercial that only showed a pile of pears at the grocery store.
Many hands picked up the same pear and put it back.
Message was Hep. C can survive for XX hrs on surfaces.
I can't remember the exact time but it was a long time.
Message was quite clear to me ALWAYS wash your food as well.
I alawys wash my hands, to the point where my husband is thinkin'g i'm losing it.
I always sanatize my hands when i leave a store and get into my car. first thing i do.
Always wash my hands as soon as I get home from anywhere with soap and water.
During a disaster, washing your hands is extreamly important. We watched a documentory during a war (sorry don't remember details, husband is war nut, not me) and how people were saying if they had soap, not as many people would have gotten ill and died.
Not as many people would have died during the Spanish flu if there were healthy people to take care of the sick. I'm sure hygine was a big part of that.
Have you watched the movie Contagion (2011) people underestimate how many times they touch their faces. Don't want to turn this into a movie discussion, but the movie does show how fast stuff can spread.
Great post Entropy and good advice. It is amazing how simple things that can becaome a habit can go so far to protect us and keep us all healthy.
I am NOT advocating poor hygiene and everything posted above is good, but there is such a thing as too much as well.
I spent 15 years living overseas in Venezuela, Egypt, and Indonesia. There were large expatriate communities in all of these places, and the one thing that stood out over the years, is that the people (read whole families) who were fanatic about sanitation were the ones who were getting sick; some of them seriously. They carried hand sanitizer everywhere, their houses smelled like bleach they scrubbed and soaked the veggies religously and only ate out at 4/5 star hotels. They picked up bugs to the point that a good number were medically evacuated for treatment in England. Then there were the slummers; we ate at street stalls, sat on the cabbages that were to go into the soup next and ignored the flies and cockroaches, and slept in 2 star hotels with the locals. I always ended up giving my emergency antibiotics to the uptown folks who never seemed to have any. Hot foods hot, cold foods cold, no mayo, seafood or buffets, crack the seal on your water yourself and live long and prosper.
The moral of the story is: hygiene is important but don't be so excessive that you do not build up immunities to the local flora and fauna. If you do not already have serious health issues, then live a little to make sure you can live. Go out and practice getting dirty. The daily allowance of 2 gal of water per person is too high in a real badass SHTF situation; you will run out quickly because you are not prepared for true cut backs and will use too much water in the beginning. The word shower shouldn't even be in SHTF vocabulary. Try a "sponge" bath with a few cups of water for just the stinky parts every few days or longer. Thats reality if you are in lockdown in a city without power for what seems to be eternity. I wouldn't want risk being without a built up immune system. That and having every vaccine known to man kind.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/09/23/who-coronavirus-sars-family-outbreak.html
New virus like sars but worse found.
One man in London Ontario with it.
The only thing that travels faster than the spread of a virus these days is news of a virus. I think that the individual in question in this article was transferred from Saudi Arabia to London in the United Kingdom not to London Ontario. If you know of a has in North America please post it as it would be of great interest to people here.
Flu kills 250 - 500 thousand people a year but something new is all the rage. I worry more about a flu mutation than this stuff personally.
when i heard about this early this morning it was still only in Saudi Arabia. . . that's fast.
adsum. . . aut viam inveniam aut faciam
Is not a flue shut weaken flu bacteria ? Newer had a flue shut in my life and I do not remember having flue.Cold newer longer than a day.When I grew up there were not sanitizers just basic natural soaps.You actually were not a kid if you were not dirty from toe to your ears.There were no allergist (today kids use all kinds of soaps, sanitizers atc.and like 60 % of them have allergis and avery flue that comes around).The only way to develop immunity to introduce your body at early age to everything
Keep your hands clean but we are way overdoing it.All the healthy foods (natural) we have in here and we eat so much garbage just for convenience.(laziness)
Henry
Is not a flue shut weaken flu bacteria ? Newer had a flue shut in my life and I do not remember having flue.Cold newer longer than a day.When I grew up there were not sanitizers just basic natural soaps.You actually were not a kid if you were not dirty from toe to your ears.There were no allergist (today kids use all kinds of soaps, sanitizers atc.and like 60 % of them have allergis and avery flue that comes around).The only way to develop immunity to introduce your body at early age to everything
Keep your hands clean but we are way overdoing it.All the healthy foods (natural) we have in here and we eat so much garbage just for convenience.(laziness)
Henry
Its called the "farm effect" and is well documented in many studies. Getting exposure to your environment at a young age developes your immune system. I don't catch colds or flu either. I have had the flu maybe 2x that I can remember, last time about 8 yrs ago and I don't remember having a cold ever.
Is not a flue shut weaken flu bacteria ? Newer had a flue shut in my life and I do not remember having flue.Cold newer longer than a day.When I grew up there were not sanitizers just basic natural soaps.You actually were not a kid if you were not dirty from toe to your ears.There were no allergist (today kids use all kinds of soaps, sanitizers atc.and like 60 % of them have allergis and avery flue that comes around).The only way to develop immunity to introduce your body at early age to everything
Keep your hands clean but we are way overdoing it.All the healthy foods (natural) we have in here and we eat so much garbage just for convenience.(laziness)
Henry
the flu shot is a split virus or a dead virus, it can NOT make you sick. many people claim to feel crappy after the shot, that is either your immune response hitting you, or you got a bug some standing in line with a lot of other people in a time/environment that is very friendly to germs spreading (that's why they call it flu season!)
virus effect everyone differently. there is no way of knowing how a new virus will hit you. you have some immunity to common bugs from exposure to them, from parental immunity (limited) and things like the flu shot. the chance of you never having a flu or cold bug is unlikely, you just may not of had symptoms that you noticed. i work with a lot of germy dirty people. when i first started i got sick often. when i became extremely caution about washing my hands before touching my face, when eating. (i wash my hands and they touch NOTHING but my clean dishes, i wipe the table off, and i wipe my dishes off before they go back in my bag).
the same goes with teachers of the younger grades, the first few years they teach they are always sick, kids are dirty and sticky, and the sticky part really bugs me lol.
with the rate disease can spread these days, and the burden of really bad bugs in the cities, it's worth taking extra precautions, there are many people touching your fruits with MRSA, and VRE. the hospital strains aren't horrible for the most part, but some strains will kill even healthier people. Hep A, B, and C are very very common. . . AIDS is more so, but the people don't look sick any more. . . you can't tell who's has these, who's washed their hands after using the bathroom, who's picked their nose to the point of bleeding. . . all these people can infect you!
some germs can live a few long time on hard surfaces, it's prudent to take some precaution. . .
adsum. . . aut viam inveniam aut faciam
Mi idea of flue shut was not that it makes you sick but if you expose yourself from young age to all kinds of bacteria you build up your immune system to most diseases.When they tell you that some of the soaps or disinfectants kill 95% of bacteria but if you are healthy most of your bacteria is the good bacteria and you kill 95% of good bacteria.It is like battle field you have one thousand men and you are attack by one hundred men.You call for air support and they come bombed and kill 95% what was on the field.You are left with 50 of your men and 5 of the enemy . I rather make my men better equipped .
Henry .
Remember people, the 3 most germ ladden objects in your house, is the phone,the computer keyboard, and... that bar of soat thats on the sink right by the toilet. Now think about it, whats the last part of your body most people wash last in the shower. What does the next person wash first with that same bar of soap... 😯 😮
"We 'Prep.' to live after a downfall, Not just to survive."
Remember people, the 3 most germ ladden objects in your house, is the phone,the computer keyboard, and... that bar of soat thats on the sink right by the toilet. Now think about it, whats the last part of your body most people wash last in the shower. What does the next person wash first with that same bar of soap... 😯 😮
if you eat chicken or turkey your kitchen sink will likely have more fecal contamination in it then your toilet will. . . while i don't have the book or the time to find it and type it up. . . everything about chicken and turkeys are dirty, even the plastic sealing the turkeys up has tested positive for fecal matter!
for more info read "Bird flu: a virus of our own hatching" Michael Greger MD you may not eat either again 😮
adsum. . . aut viam inveniam aut faciam