Fun handwashing videos

Let's have a plethora* of fun handwashing videos - there are some really good ones out there.





*tehe, couldn't resist

When I think about telling people how to wash, I'm tempted to talk about how well they'd wash if they'd accidentally got their hand covered in baby poo, or if they'd been out working in the wet soil and their hands were coated in mud. It takes a LONG time to get that stuff off your hands. It's not any different with germs!

Now for gross story no one wants to hear: I used to work at a preschool, and one of the little kids had surpise loose stools. Pants and legs were covered in poop. We didn't have requirements on needing to wear gloves when cleaning up poop, and I didn't have any on hand, so I just cleaned her up and washed really really well. Lots of soap, a good minute of scrubbing.... and then it was my lunchtime, and I went to get my peanut butter sandwich to eat....and smelled POOP! AHHHHH! It had lingered under my nails or something. I went back and washed even more. Germs are like poop. They need a lot of scrubbing to really get rid of them! (And, yes, from that time on, I always made sure I had gloves when I had to clean up poo. I didn't need to have that happen ever again!)

Which makes me wonder, what if we just put on latex/nitrile gloves when shopping? You're far less likely to rub your eye while wearing gloves, and you can take them off when you park your cart. You can then wash them when you get home, so you're not just adding a bunch of gloves to the landfill.

I had two kids in the neonatal ICU and that was my first introduction to Serious Handwashing (although my first job was shoveling horse poo in a stable, you get pretty good at washing, washing again, still smells like poo, wash again....). In a setting where it's posited as extra important, it's easier to take that extra ten seconds.

(talking to my kid yesterday, who just started classes on Monday. She said she is washing for 40 seconds. I said, what, 40? even WHO says less than that. She sighed and said, "my nails take extra time". She may be a bio lab girl with her hands in the mud catching critters, but her nails are still glamorous.)