For people living in the US, at what point does it become particularly important to start following these methods? I assume it’s always beneficial, but risk adjusted not particularly important until there start being more cases in the US or until we start having more cases. Is that assumption right or dangerously wrong?
There doesn’t seem to be any local transmission in the US yet—so for now, I guess it probably wouldn’t help much (though it would still help prevent the spread of the common cold/flu!).
If/when there is local transmission, following this advice will be very important.
The CDC and WHO emphasise handwashing, not gloves. “WHO experts advise against wearing gloves on the basis that hand-washing is more important and people wearing gloves are less likely to wash their hands.”
Alcohol-based hand sanitiser is also good. Often better than hand washing in practice as very few people actually wait for the water to get warm, or spend 20 seconds lathering the soap.
While I agree that most people don’t wash their hands correctly, I was recently surprised to learn that warm water doesn’t make much of a difference when it comes to killing germs.
Makes sense from the point of view of killing germs, and temperatures being tolerable for us also being tolerable for germs. My intuition is that it’s easier to get dirt (which contains germs) off hands with warmer water (similar to how it’s easier to wash dishes with warmer water).
Thanks for this. I found this article on how to personally prevent its spread helpful: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/25/wuhan-coronavirus-safety-china/
For people living in the US, at what point does it become particularly important to start following these methods? I assume it’s always beneficial, but risk adjusted not particularly important until there start being more cases in the US or until we start having more cases. Is that assumption right or dangerously wrong?
There doesn’t seem to be any local transmission in the US yet—so for now, I guess it probably wouldn’t help much (though it would still help prevent the spread of the common cold/flu!).
If/when there is local transmission, following this advice will be very important.
The CDC and WHO emphasise handwashing, not gloves. “WHO experts advise against wearing gloves on the basis that hand-washing is more important and people wearing gloves are less likely to wash their hands.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/27/coronavirus-how-to-protect-yourself-from-infection
Alcohol-based hand sanitiser is also good. Often better than hand washing in practice as very few people actually wait for the water to get warm, or spend 20 seconds lathering the soap.
While I agree that most people don’t wash their hands correctly, I was recently surprised to learn that warm water doesn’t make much of a difference when it comes to killing germs.
https://medicalsciences.stackexchange.com/questions/500/does-hot-water-kill-germs-better-than-cold-water
Makes sense from the point of view of killing germs, and temperatures being tolerable for us also being tolerable for germs. My intuition is that it’s easier to get dirt (which contains germs) off hands with warmer water (similar to how it’s easier to wash dishes with warmer water).
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