Wash your Hands!

I don’t know about anyone else, but I definitely don’t remember life before the COVID-19 pandemic. I still can’t believe at one point, wearing masks was not a norm and that shaking hands to greet someone was.

This isn’t my typical blog post. I want to use this platform (despite my many few readers) as a way to help others recognize their part during this pandemic - and what to do as decent humans. And our jobs are rather quite simple: social distance, wear masks and wash your hands.

The first two can prevent us from catching the virus, but the latter will help us fight it. Though there are many political controversies over what freedom means to Americans, the physical wellbeing of ourselves and those around us should be given utmost importance, so we should continue to social distance and wear masks. However, the last one - washing our hands - has been overlooked by our ignorance. It all seems like common knowledge, but surprisingly, there is a lot that many don’t know about.

All that being said, don’t stop reading just because you think you’ve been doing everything correctly because chances are, you may be wrong. I’m going to start off by presenting just a few statistics that may make you wanna reconsider the next time you make any physical contact with anyone: 1 in 4 people just wet their hand without using soup, 1 in 10 people don’t even wash their hand after going to the bathroom, about 5% actually properly wash their hands, and up to 80% of communicable diseases, including COVID-19, are transferred by touch (Burdette)!

COVID-19 has changed all our lives, some more significantly than others, but without a doubt, has made us more cognizant of our hygiene. This week (Dec 6-12) is National Handwashing Awareness Week and of course, washing your hands has ALWAYS been important, but this year’s chaos has created a little more need for emphasis. Believe it or not, health officials claim that just soap and water are the best things we have right now against the germs that may be already on us (Goodman).

Since we were toddlers, we were consistently told to “wash our hands before and after we eat” or “after going to the bathroom”. Such etiquettes have been drilled into our heads for longer than we can imagine. However, circumstances have changed. Now we are expected to sanitize every item or food we buy and wash our hands every time we step outside of the house. Our etiquettes have changed to fit our needs and soap will continue to serve as our superheroes along with frontline healthcare workers amidst this pandemic.

The efficacy of regular soap can be narrowed down to two reasons: can break apart the layer of lipid molecules (fat) in which the coronavirus is held within so that the virus won’t affect you and can also make your skin slippery so that the germs can slide away (Goodman). This means that regular soap is not directly killing the germs like antibacterial soap but rather displacing them into the drain. Both regular and antibacterial soap have their pros and cons, but they both still guarantee protection against the coronavirus.

Now I’m not trying to make anyone feel dumb or evoke Kindergarten nostalgia, but more than ever, regardless of how old or young you may be, these five steps are CRUCIAL during this pandemic.

1. Wet your hands with water (doesn’t matter the temperature).

2. Apply soap around hands, between fingers, and under nails.

3. Scrub for 20 seconds according to the CDC!

4. Rinse your hands again

5. Dry your hands

This may seem unnecessary but with a pressing time like this, even the smallest efforts like putting a mask on in public or properly washing your hands can make a difference. Frontline healthcare workers are working so hard to comfort those that are suffering or those that are on their deathbeds. The least we could do is show them our concern is by carrying out our duties as humans who may not necessarily have a Ph.D. or M.D and that is, by simply washing our hands!

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Work Cited

Burdette, Erin. “17 Handwashing Facts and Statistics.” All Portable Sinks, 1 Feb. 2018,

allportablesinks.com/blogs/news/17-handwashing-facts-and-statistics.

Goodman, Brenda. “The Power of Hand-Washing to Prevent Coronavirus.” WebMD, WebMD, 6 Mar.

2020, www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200306/power-of-hand-washing-to-prevent-coronavirus.