Wash your hands please!

Our Chief Medical Officer is expressing concern that some, perhaps most, people seem to think that "hand sanitiser" is a substitute for washing your hands.

It isn't.

It isn't.

It isn't.

I hope I won't need to repeat that. I have been in and out of hospitals (visiting) too many times to not know the difference. I use hand sanitiser there - more often than I like. It is automatic by now. 

I do it even though the alcohol in the sanitiser makes me want to scratch my paws - and using the sort with ingredients designed to keep your skin moist is not the answer to my problem. But, using it is not going to kill me - not using it might. I use it.

It is not a substitute for giving my paws a thorough wash with soap and water. Sanitiser does not get rid of the dirt - think about it. How could it? But it still works.

Our local supermarkets provide sanitiser - and wipes for the trolleys. Supermarket trolleys and the press buttons on pedestrian traffic lights, stop-call bells on buses, handles on doors (that don't open automatically), coins and more. They all need to be sanitised because they can't realistically be washed. We need to use sanitiser when we can't wash our hands and, if available, after we have washed our hands in a public facility. I have taken a small number of wipes with me (in a sealed sandwich bag) when I go to places like a craft fair.  Let's face it - how many other people have used the door handles and more? 

But people are getting careless again. I have observed people going in and out of the supermarket.They aren't using the QR code or signing in. They just go in. They don't use the hand sanitiser. 

I am just as bad in a sense. I need to upgrade the phone I am using so that it can scan a QR code but I am signing in - despite the problems it presents me. I am using the sanitiser and the trolley wipes. I use the sanitiser provided elsewhere too.

And I am still washing my paws. I am not obsessive about this. I am simply being careful. I don't want to become ill - and I don't want anyone else to become ill because of me. Of course we need to build up a certain resistance as well - but there are times and  places for that.

I really don't envy the Chief Medical Officer. She has an almost impossible task trying to convince people that there really is an army of germs just waiting to invade us all.