If we can say anything positive about the COVID-19 pandemic, it would be that it reinforced how important hand hygiene is to overall public health. Washing your hands is one of the easiest and least expensive steps you can take to prevent the spread of disease. When you cannot wash your hands, using a hand sanitizer serves as a good substitute. Even when we are not facing a pandemic, hand washing is important. It even more so in winter.
Why Hand Hygiene is so Important in Winter
Winter is cold and flu season. There are a few reasons for this. First, viruses like colds and flus tend to spread more efficiently in cold air. Next, cold weather tends to drive people indoors. As we know, close indoor contact makes it easier to spread airborne viruses. It also means touching the same surfaces as other people, a prime way to share colds and flus. Hand hygiene can help slow or reduce the spread of these diseases.
When to Wash
It is difficult to overdo handwashing. Ideally, you would wash your hands after touching any new surface, after touching your face, after using the washroom facilities, and before and after eating. However, we do not live in an ideal world. Even if you stress the importance of hand hygiene to employees and customers, they are not going to go to the washroom to wash their hands all of those times. However, if you spread hand sanitizing stations around your business, you can encourage more frequent hand hygiene.
How to Wash Your Hands
Another thing the pandemic showed us is that many people do not wash their hands properly. You need to spend some time scrubbing in order to remove germs. You also need to get the entire surface of your hands. We recommend washing hands for at least 20 seconds, scrubbing the entire surface, and then rinsing them. Do not forget to use a paper towel or elbow to turn off the faucet to avoid recontaminating your hands. You can use sinks with sensors in your workplace to eliminate this problem!
Workplace Hand Hygiene
Flick offers a number of solutions designed to make workplace hand hygiene easier. Contact us today for an evaluation. We can come out, inspect your workplace, and make recommendations tailored to your business. Often, a few small changes are enough to greatly improve workplace hygiene.
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