I started down the rabbit hole of hand hygiene research and feel like if I keep reading I’ll be hosting Deal or No Deal soon. I always wash my hands after the restroom but not with the full minute of thumb wrestling shown in the video.
One takeaway from the research is that soap results in a significant reduction in CFUs over no soap. Another takeaway is that getting to 20-30 seconds of agitation results in a very significant CFU reduction compared to, say, five seconds. Five seconds is longer than you think in rubbing-your-hands-together time, and I’d guess my average wash is under ten seconds of hand rubbing. Fail.
But that made me think of something weird I’ve observed in public washrooms, which is there seems to be a sizable group of [males] who perform a one-second obligatory rinse without soap. I mean they literally stick their hands in the general vicinity of running water for one Mississippi and bail. That is by far the most interesting phenomenon in hand washing similar to people circumventing the shoulder strap in seatbelt use. Like, if you were conducting a study in psychology, those are the people you’d want to talk to.
I’m only now starting to realize how much MJ was ahead of his time. Dude wore the mask, covered his eyes, had his face replaced with antimicrobial plastics, and protected his hand with a sequined glove which is second only to tax cuts in reducing disease transmission.
This is where all states are not created equal. Garnishment and liens are not available tools to debt collectors in some states and their only real attack vector is the credit score. Not saying that is nothing but it is magnitudes easier to deal with then the former.
Confession - I’ve been a 2-3 second hand-washer forever. And am now probably a 5 second hand-washer at best. I will try to do better.
Also I’ve chewed my nails and cuticles since I was 5 years old - although thankfully in the last few years I mostly just pick at them. And I did just get a manicure in an attempt to stop that. It’s working so far.
And sometimes I even pick my nose when no one’s looking! I’m gonna guess that’s the all time worst thing. But come on man - when you get those crusty ones - nose blowing aint gonna get those out.
And still I usually only get sick when I’m super stressed out or I fly on a plane. I also got sick (that month-long cold thing - might be the croups) after Vegas last time from several late night drunk stressful poker sessions. Yeah that’ll do it.
I know I have a good immune system. But I’m convinced that at least for me I’m teeming with stuff all the time that’s just waiting for a big spike in my stress level, or me to get depressed/grief-stricken over something - and then it strikes.
It makes me wonder if this will be like that for a lot of people. They’ll just carry it around asymptomatic (but possibly not very contagious?) for what could be months. Until they get stressed out about something or something else stresses their body out.
Also something about planes. Maybe it’s just the close quarters, or the way it plays havoc with your sinuses, or the stale air. But I always come down with stuff after plane rides.
