Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

This grew out of a comment I was leaving at PFA on a bird flu post. His point is to be prepared if there is an outbreak of illness. Bird flu will have a financial toll on the economy too so it’s worth PF blogging about it. The main thing you can do to stop from getting sick and spreading germs is to wash your hands. You’ll be out of work less and keep your co-workers from getting sick too. Too bad we can’t get chickens to wash themselves like we do, but that’s another story.

I used to do field installs for nursing homes. Anything I flew in on the airplane could be deadly to an elderly patient. Signs on how to wash were in all the bathrooms in the facilities I visited. The basics are below with my commentary. More details here at the CDC.

1. Use as hot of a temperature as you can stand. No need to burn yourself, just get it as hot as you can bear. Your skin shouldn’t turn red. That’s the sign of a first degree burn!

2. Use soap. Sing the alphabet once. That is long enough to get the soap to do its thing. Scrub your nails underneath and at the cuticle. No need to use anti-bacterial stuff. It just costs more for the same thing that regular soap will do sufficiently. Most of use aren’t performing surgery so the extra expense is wasteful and creates superbugs that are harder to kill.

3. Turn of the faucet with your elbow.

4. Use a fresh paper towel to dry.

5. Save it and use it to open the door to the bathroom.

6. Toss the paper towel.

I realize that not every bathroom has the wide-paddle style faucet handle, but a lot of public bathrooms do. Obviously, I’m not advocating that you use paper towels at home because they’re expensive, but please do use a fresh hand towel and make sure they get washed regularly. I like cheapie washcloths from IKEA. Small enough to get a whole stack, but big enough to dry the hands 2 or 3 times before I toss it into the hamper.

I wipe down my telephone handset a lot, at work and at home. Both the hand, mouth, and earpiece parts. I tend to get pimples on my chin if I don’t, so I started doing this because of my acne. I try not to touch the poles on the subway with my bare hands. I pull my sleeve down, and wash later when I’m off the Metro. I like winter because no one thinks you’re weird if you are wearing gloves when you are holding on.

Please, wash your hands. If you find yourself washing a lot, get hand lotion. I find that I dry out my hands during the long east coast winters. I dab on lotion to keep my skin from cracking. I recommend Aquaphor Healing Ointment. It’s petroleum jelly with some extra stuff. They use it for burn patients. My friends with eczema swear by it. It’s not animal tested and it’s been tested safe for children and it appears to be vegan (if you care about such things). I suppose you could use plain Vaseline, but I found Aquaphor really does minimize burn scars. (I dismounted the back of a Ducati and touched my bare calf to the pipe that goes into the carbon fiber exhaust pipe, yes, I know, I shouldn’t have touched that part, but he didn’t lean the bike far enough, ok?). Oh, and you should buy it generic if you can find it, but I’m not sure there is a generic version.

One last thing, carry Purell or some other alcohol based gel if you can’t wash your hands. I saw nursing home administrators use it all the time after they touched a resident. 70% alcohol content gel is usually what medical facilities have.

So remember to wash your hands before you eat and after you potty. Get your sleep too.