Some advice re.hand hygiene-stop wearing rings.

[Pteuropa]

I work in a clean room (cell culture). We have to have our hand washing technique validated annually.

Remove your rings. Just stop wearing them for the foreseeable future. They harbour so many particles and it’s impossible to get your hands thoroughly clean whilst wearing them.

Just thought that might be something people hadn’t thought of and it really would make a big difference.

Good advice.
I have taken mine off now.
Thank you

I was just considering this this morning on the way to work, have now removed them now I'm home and can keep them in a safe place

I wondered about my watch and rings yesterday. Thanks OP, it makes sense to not wear them at the moment.

I was thinking about posting something very similar! I've not worn mine since the extra hand washing advice came in a couple of weeks ago, it seemed sensible.

Excellent advice, IV been ranting why aren't we telling people to do this.

Never thought if that - and the virus lives longer on metal than fabric too, right? Thanks for the tip!

I normally wash my wedding ring when I wash my hands, but it does have areas that might be an issue.

Wedding rings don't count though, fine to keep them on.

If your wedding ring has any engraving inside or out, consider removing the ring

Also trim nails right back and get get nails off.

Good tip, thank you!

@FixTheBone I hope so because I can't get it off!

Wedding rings don't count though, fine to keep them on.

It's still a dirt trap though, I'd take them all off personally.
Soap getting trapped, rubbing and such can also make any soreness worse.

I cut my nails shortso I can wash my hands properly. You are supposed to wash under the nail tip. People with talons, false or otherwise, will not be washing their hands properly.

My rings won't come off. I think I'd have to lose a couple of stone for that to happen.

Thanks, hadn’t thought of that.

Can't. It won't come off.

Plus go bare below the elbows - this has been hospital hand hygiene for years and it does work.
A plain wedding band probably doesn't make too much difference - I move mine up and down to clean underneath - but any stoned rings should be removed.

Rings watches Fitbits nail varnish all harbour germs

Yes absolutely right to cut nails short and remove nail varnish and watches.

Plain wedding bands aren’t too bad (they are actually allowed in our lab) but really I’d remove them too. Also if you can, keep sleeves rolled up and always remember to wash your wrists.

Also, leave the tap running whilst you dry your hands then use a paper towel to turn the tap off. Also open the toilet door with a paper towel.

That was a lot of ‘also’s’ 😆

I gave exactly this advice to a few colleagues yesterday. I remembered from when my twins were in the Special Care Baby Unit 18 years ago. I was given an infection control brief by the staff which included how to wash (and dry) my hands correctly, part of the brief included removing rings and watches.

I'll add another Also!

Also remove your wedding band - with it on there is still a risk that the area under and around it does not get washed or dried properly.

I took mine off today and cut all my nails off too.

Dh had an email off hr yesterday saying gel is as good as handwashing, he says he’s going to contest that if he gets time today because it’s just not true.

Yeh, gel isn’t very effective on its own.

The way we’re validated is that we do finger dabs onto agar plates which are then incubated at 23 and 32 degrees for a total of 5 days. Fungal colonies grow at 23, bacteria at 32.

In order to pass the validation we have to have zero colonies grown on day 5. We do a control plate first which is unwashed hands. The counts on those can easily be into the 100’s. We then do a plate on washed hands, the counts drop to below 10 (depending on how good your hand washing tech is). Finally we gel our hands and the gel gets the count down to 0.