Is hand sanitising largely a pointless displacement activity...

[Derbygerbil]

... to convince ourselves and others that we are more in control than we actually are.

Back in March we were all urged to scrub our hands frequently and thoroughly, singing songs as we did so. This didn’t stop Covid from increasing exponentially....

More and more studies seem to confirm that Covid is overwhelmingly via breathing in droplets or aerosols containing the virus, with very little, if any, evidence, for mouth-to-surface-to-surface-to mouth transmission. Even the vulnerable weren’t advised to clean down their shopping after the initial couple of weeks of lockdown!

And yet, there seems still to be so much emphasis of hand sanitising, with this seemingly a central part of many Covid response plans.

I’m not saying that keeping hands clean isn’t a good thing - it is, but the focus doesn’t seem to be so much about actual Covid prevention, but being seen to do something, and the sense of control and confidence this brings.... but with the consequence that people have an exaggerated sense of its importance, either:
a) leading to unnecessary neurotic, compulsive behaviours or;
b) engaging in other far more “risky” social activity because you’ve done “what matters” and sanitised, or even;
c) arguing that masks (whose purpose is to prevent the primary mode of transmission via breath) are rendered useless by the mere touch to the face (despite this would be a highly unusual mode of virus transmission).

our hands are becoming used to the gel, initially my hands were so sore, and dry but now they have cured themselves

Infection control experts have been working hard on this for months. Everything I have read in professional journals has pointed to hand sanitising as being one of the most effective ways of reducing transmission of all sorts of bacterial and viral infections. Hence it's use in hospitals and surgeries for years.
When I was working, I cleaned my keyboard, phone, consulting room door handle regularly.
Shaking hands is the easiest way to spread germs.
I hope people will continue to pay more attention to hand hygiene as winter approaches.

Op what have you read? I feel I’ve missed something on this.

I thought aerosol / droplet has gone up in importance but hadn’t seen much on touch being downgraded.

@MarshaBradyo

Here’s one:

www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099(20)30561-2.pdf

I’m not saying that washing or sanitising hands is a bad thing or doesn’t play a role, just that it seems to have disproportionate and exaggerated prominence.

I remember the Cheltenham festival and their prominent hand sanitising stations loudly exhorting people “don’t pass it on!”, yet no one is saying that “if only festival goers had washed their hands a bit more, it wouldn’t have been a series super-spreading events.”

Is CV an airborne disease?

I meant passed via the air through respiratory droplets or aerosols.

Sure, its not a panacea but your anecdote on skimmed milk and Gateau is simply wrong.

I stand by this as illustrated by my Cheltenham post a few moments ago. I’m not saying that Covid can’t be spread via surfaces, but the route from one mouth to another is generally far more convoluted, and despite the millions of cases worldwide, there is only patchy evidence that anyone has contracted it from surfaces compared to the many, many case studies showing droplet/aerosol transmission.

So washing and sanitising is good, and every little helps, but it’s a poor substitute for other control measures.

As regard to the gateau and skimmed milk...my sister used to say that it's not a question about one or the other; she will eat the cake anyway, and then it's a question of skimmer or semi-skimmed milk.
So you could argue skimmed milk is like using lot of handgel

I have been wondering about whether the focus on surface cleaning/hand sanitiser was really justified too, so v grateful to you for starting the thread, OP.

I am also surprised, when looking at what place are doing to make themselves "Covid secure", by the relative lack of focus on ventilation... which actually does seem to me (from my very limited knowledge) to be a key way of reducing Covid spread.

I do think ventilation should be a focus. But I’d keep all the sanitising stations private stores / restaurants etc have in place.

I’m not looking forward to ds having sore hands like he did in March from school hand washing. Do people think this should be dropped? Or keep it and add ventilation - not always possible sadly.

Ps thanks for link will read when I have a mo

It’s always been known that hand sanitising isn’t the best option - it’s a least worse option.

Ie if you can’t use hot water and soap, you use hand sanitiser.

It’s one of many measures.

The real problem is the lack of proper public health campaign in my view.

But I guess the government doesn’t want to because it’ll expose the fact that we shouldn’t be sitting in crowded pubs, on crowded trains and going back to offices.

Hand hygiene is important in controlling all infectious illnesses, so of course it's important here too, but it's not going to make it go away and doesn't come with a guarantee.

[quote Derbygerbil]@EmilyDickinson

I do agree, particularly as regards schools. Children and staff are washing and sanitising their hands all the time....

It was my son’s primary school that triggered this thread. So much emphasis and effort on hand washing, cleaning surfaces and quarantining books etc to give an impression of safety... It’s like trying to stop a draught by shutting your window vents while the door remains wide open.[/quote]
This is where the problem is. It’s not that the hand washing itself is daft because while it is airborne through droplets and probably aerosols, surface transmission is still a possibility.

Where it is daft is using it as the only form of mitigation or translating 1m + mitigation as 1m + washing your hands.

Wondering if this goes back to the BBC programme/study where they infected a town with a fake virus.

It showed the impact of handwashing on stemming the spread of the pandemic and this was significant. I remember this being the main takeaway from the show.

And do we risk becoming so sanitised that this diminishes immunity to other diseases?

As regard to the gateau and skimmed milk...my sister used to say that it's not a question about one or the other; she will eat the cake anyway, and then it's a question of skimmer or semi-skimmed milk. So you could argue skimmed milk is like using lot of handgel

I suppose something is better than nothing, but my issue is where people think the skimmed milk negates the impact of the gateau.

I wouldn’t want to ditch messaging on hand hygiene, but to get it into proportion. It would be interesting to compare this coming half-term to previous half-term in terms of other non-Covid infections, which i expect hand hygiene is more relevant to. If things like norovirus infections plummet for instance, it may be a practice we should keep - albeit in a sustainable and proportionate form - long after the current Covid crisis is over.

And do we risk becoming so sanitised that this diminishes immunity to other diseases?

It’s a balance... Some hygiene is clearly good. Too much isn’t. I’m not sure where the right balance is, but if it needs to be sustainable and not interfere excessively with life.

If children aren’t able to use library books freely (because they have to be quarantined for three days after every touch!) or wet themselves because toilet use and lengthy hand-washing rituals are officiously managed, it’s probably going too far...

The various case studies about spreading events show that air currents, or lack of them, play an important part in the spread of Covid indoors. The air coming in through open windows seems to disperse an aerosol, while the 'jet' from air con blows it in particular directions more intact.

It seems to me that the one thing that would really help is to open the window(s). But so many buildings, including schools, have their windows sealed shut.

If I were PM I'd pass a law that all buildings used by the public (I count employees as the public) must have openable windows. And we could expect to wear warmer clothes indoors if necessary.

Hand washing and where necessary using a hand santiser is a normal part of infection control in any institutional setting (infectious disease expert here). Now, hand washing/santising may not be as effective as complete self-isolation (having no contact with other people), but there is a reason why it's always been used in hospitals, schools, care homes, etc. as a means of reducing risk of the spread of infectious diseases. It's nothing new. Schools, etc. are asked to do the same in instances of a norovirus outbreak, flu, etc.

I agree that it is distraction from the main source of transmission which is airborne particles. The government don’t want to admit that this is the main source as it would mean so many places would not be able to open and have a bigger effect on the economy. You can tell from all the return to school colds people are catching in Scotland that they hand sanitizung isnt making much difference to virus transmition

Isn’t there a difference here between looking at measures that stop a particular infection and measures in place in settings where you are trying to stop transmission of a number of different infections with different transmission routes?

Handwashing is cheap for gov. They arent efen paying for hand sanitiser or extra cleaners for schools.

Compare countries doing well. They use masks (surgical ones).
If it was mainly handwashing there would be less variation between countries.

Also shielders werent told just wash your hands and you can go to the pub. It was stay home. (Though also wash shopping). And them and other vulnerable strictly SD...
The weather and rubbish housing is awful for ventilation. The old city housing may explain also why poorer city areas are worse affected.

Silly Q. Will it go through walls so if your neighbour in a terrace had it? I mean they are not airtight..

Some viruses -adenovirus etc live on surfaces for months. So these germs will build up and more kids will be off with coughs. If you only had 15 vs 30 thats a big difference.
They are only quarantining the 3d so that will still spread other viruses.

And them and other vulnerable strictly SD

Sillier question, did we ever know what stringently/strictly social distancing meant, or looks like in practice?

“ It's nothing new. ”

This is also my experience with eg baby groups, toddler groups, nurseries etc

All previously practised strict hygiene and careful handwashing. None wanted to be associated with an outbreak of eg norovirus. Someone said to me when nurseries reopened “but what about nappy changes, the virus has been found in faeces”. Well if they weren’t already practising strict hygiene around nappy changes then the risks pale into insignificance compared to coronavirus

If I were PM I'd pass a law that all buildings used by the public (I count employees as the public) must have openable windows. And we could expect to wear warmer clothes indoors if necessary.

DD came home yesterday from school and said that the windows and door in the classroom were open. The teacher (half) joked that in winter they'd all have to wear coats, hats scarves etc.