The twenty seconds
Most people rinse for a few seconds and miss half the hand.
- Wet your hands under running water, warm or cold, since temperature makes no difference.
- Lather with plain soap, since antibacterial soap has shown no added benefit.
- Scrub for twenty seconds, covering the backs of the hands, between the fingers, both thumbs and under the nails, which are the places most people skip.
- Rinse well.
- Dry your hands completely with a clean towel, because wet hands pick up and pass on germs far more readily than dry ones.
When it counts
Wash before you eat or prepare food and after you handle raw meat. Wash after using the toilet or changing a diaper, after blowing your nose or coughing into your hand, and after touching garbage, animals or pet food. Wash before and after you tend a wound or look after someone who is ill, and when you come home from a bus, a train, a store or a gym. Most respiratory infections get in through the eyes, nose and mouth, so keep your hands off your face.
What sanitizer can do
Hand sanitizer needs at least 60 percent alcohol. Use enough to cover every surface of both hands, and rub until they are dry, which takes about twenty seconds. It works poorly on hands that are visibly dirty or greasy. It also does not reliably kill norovirus, the usual cause of stomach bugs, so a household with vomiting or diarrhea needs soap and water every time.
When you are the sick one
For colds, flu and similar illness, federal health guidance is to stay home until your symptoms have been improving for 24 hours and you have gone 24 hours without a fever and without fever-reducing medicine. Take extra care for the next five days by keeping your distance and wearing a mask around anyone frail. With a stomach bug, stay home and do not cook for other people until two full days after the symptoms stop. Cough and sneeze into a tissue or your elbow, and throw the tissue away at once. At home, use your own towel and cup, and wipe faucet handles, doorknobs and remotes once a day. Surfaces soiled by a stomach bug need a bleach-based cleaner, because norovirus survives most others. A flu shot every fall is recommended for every adult, and the American Academy of Pediatrics advises one for children from six months old.
Tip Clean your phone a few times a week with a wipe of 70 percent isopropyl alcohol. It goes everywhere your hands go and never gets washed.
