Hand-Washing: A Simple but Very Underrated Way to Keep Yourself Safe

In light of the pandemic, we have to do as much as possible to keep each other safe. Wearing a mask, staying 6 feet apart, and washing our hands are extremely important measures we have to take to limit the spread of germs.

How to properly wash your hands?

Washing your hands is an effective way to protect yourself from the virus, but only if it's done properly. Wash your hands for at least 30 seconds (or sing happy birthday twice) with warm water and lathering soap. A five second run under plain water will do you no good! Make sure to scrub the 7 main areas of your hand: Palms, between the fingers, back of the hands, back of the fingers, base of the thumbs, under your fingernails, and lastly your wrists. Most people just focus on their palms, but really make sure to get under those fingernails and around the fingers to ensure you're not carrying any germs.

Why should you wash your hands?

Washing your hands is extremely important to do especially in times like this. If you wash your hands with warm soap and water, you are preventing the spread of the germs that you have collected onto your hands from getting elsewhere, and maybe even affecting someone else. The coronavirus is an easy to spread virus that can linger on countertops and doorknobs and just about everywhere else you touch daily. Washing your hands is a good way to keep yourself safe from the germs that you can’t see but can still harm you.

The science of soap

Soap, though it is a common household item, can actually help immensely to get rid of coronavirus cells. Covid cells, according to Benhur Lee, a professor of microbiology in the Icahn School of Medicine, essentially have a fat or lipid layer as their cell membrane. Soap particles were made to get rid of fats, and can easily latch onto fats and lipids. So when we rub soap all over our hands, any covid cells that may be present, latch onto the soap molecules. When we run the warm water, the soap molecules get washed away along with the covid cells.

So when should I?

If you or a loved one has to leave for work at this time, it is important to make sure that they wash their hands immediately once they come back home so that they can limit the spread of germs that they might have carried back home from their workplace. Just in general, if you go to a public space and return home after completing your errands, it is your priority to wash your hands once you return to your home.

We must do all that we can to limit the spread of this virus, and one very simple way to do this is handwashing. Make sure to take out a few thirty seconds per day even if you haven't gone out in order to keep your family and friends safe, as well as yourself.