If there has one thing we have been told over the last few months it is the importance of handwashing. While some of us were already good handwashers, and some have become good handwashers as times have changed, others still just aren’t getting it!
If you were in any doubt about just how important handwashing is just have a look at this experiment that was carried out by a teacher in Idaho. Please note that while this experiment was carried out long before the current crisis, it just goes to show you that we should have always been using good hand cleaning techniques and practices. Her post regarding her experiment has now been shared over 70,000 times on Facebook.
At the beginning of last winter, Jaralee Metcalf, a behavioural specialist from Idaho Falls Elementary School, decided she was fed-up with always being sick. Although around small children the spread of bacteria is inevitable, she never the less wanted to show how her class how the spread of disease could be reduced.
To carry out the experiment, Jaralee asked the children 5 different levels of hand-cleanliness to touch a piece of white bread. They then sealed the white bread in plastic bags and kept them for a month to see what would happen. All the bags were kept under the same conditions.
The slices of bread went as follows:
1. Was rubbed on all the Chromebooks in the class
2. Wasn’t touched – this was the ‘control piece’
3. Was touched by the class using unwashed hands
4. Was touched by the class using hands cleaned with soap & water
Was touched by the class using hands cleaned with hand-sanitiser
The results after 1 month were astounding!
After one month, the Chromebook bread was the absolute worst! On no other piece of bread was there so many germs – showing how important it is to keep your computer clean. Likewise, the bread cleaned with unwashed hands was covered in an amazing amount of bacterial growth, and surprisingly the bread that had been touched with hand-sanitiser cleaned hands should some bacterial growth as well. However, this was much less than the uncleaned hands or the Chromebooks.
Now, this is the most amazing part – the bread touched by the hands that were cleaned with soap and water showed almost no bacterial growth AT ALL! In fact, it is hard to see the difference between the control piece and the bread touched by fresh soap and water cleaned hands!
Now is the time to really take notice of these results and to show your friends, family and followers just how it important this is– so have a think about giving this article a share– it could save a life!
COMMENTS