COVID-19 has been a learning experience for the entire world, especially when it comes to cleanliness and the steps we should have taken even before the pandemic.
I have always been a fan of washing my hands. It gives me the same clean feeling as putting on freshly washed clothes after a hot shower.
Washing hands frequently or using sanitizer in the stores is something everybody should be doing, whether there is the risk of spreading COVID-19 or not. Going shopping at the grocery store or mall will make your hands grimier than you might think.
Imagine a little kid. They like to touch everything. Spending my teenage years with two toddlers as siblings taught me the more things those kids touch, especially in public, the filthier they get.
Every time someone touches something, their hands pick up germs, dirt, grease and anything else which might have been on the hands of people who touched it before.
Doorknobs, light switches, faucets, buttons and other common objects, which many people touch daily, have the potential to spread one person’s germs to anybody else who touches the same object after they do.
This is why washing our hands, using hand sanitizer, sanitizing regularly touched surfaces and other similar protocols to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses are being pushed so hard during this pandemic.
Now, some people say the flu is worse than COVID-19 because it kills more people every year. Okay, let’s look at some numbers:
- Between 291,000 and 646,000 people worldwide die from seasonal influenza-related respiratory illnesses each year, according to a 2017 news release from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- There have been 601,934 COVID-19 deaths reported worldwide as of July 19, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
No matter which illness you believe is worse, I am a firm believer that none of these deaths can be justified by someone saying “COVID-19 kills more” or “influenza kills more.” Because the only thing that matters is people are dying. Too many people are dying.
And we can help lower those numbers by keeping up the same levels of hygiene we began expecting once COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. We can help prevent something like this from happening again by washing our hands and keeping the things around us sanitized.
Anteia McCollum can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @antxiam5