Be Ready to Fight Those Germs!

2 05 2011

(Thanks to our 11-year-old guest blogger, Paloma, for this timely reminder and her exciting design choices!)

When you sneeze or cough and then you touch something, you’re spreading germs all around.

For example, sneezing then climbing into the school bus, touching the hand rail and the backs and bottoms of the seats.  Everywhere your hand touches, it leaves germs behind.

  

When a kid sneezes or coughs and doesn’t use a tissue or wash their hands after, they spread a lot of germs around.  That’s how a lot of colds and flu and other diseases jump from kid to kid.

To prevent from getting sick or spreading your sickness around, you can wash your hands, and if you don’t have soap around, you can always carry hand sanitizer in whatever you have, like a satchel or a purse.

Kids should bring hand sanitizer to school because school is probably one of the most likely places where you can get sick because little kids are sneezing and touching things after and probably not using a tissue, but I’m sure they do sometimes.

You don’t always know where the germs are because they are little tiny germs and you can get them by just touching one thing that has someone’s germs on it.

Make sure to always wash your hands when you cough or sneeze, and if you don’t have any soap then sanitize. If you don’t have sanitizer make sure you go pick some up.

Germs hate soap and sanitizer.

NO MORE GERMS NO MORE GERMS NO MORE GERMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Always remember to cover your cough with a tissue and when you sneeze cover it up with a tissue. And when you sneeze into a tissue or cough into one you still have to wash your hands or use hand sanitizer. Soap would be better to use if you had some around.  Always wash your hands before dinner or before you empty the dishwasher etc.

BE READY TO FIGHT THOSE GERMS!!!

Photo credits: Creative Commons, Mountainside Medical, Discovery School





iPad shmiPad, It’s Germy!

7 04 2011

Don’t you love your iPad? Your Droid? Your iPhone? Whatever touch-screen device you use, isn’t it (sigh) maaaarvelous?

It’s also germier than a subway toilet, according to a study published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. Viruses can stay viable on the surface of these devices for awhile. If we share our touch-screen device with others, the germs they leave behind can transfer to our fingertips. Once that happens, it’s easy to become infected.

So, how can we disinfect the device without getting moisture into the inner workings or damaging the surface?

According to Apple’s public relations team, the only way to clean an iPad is to:

…unplug all cables and turn off iPad (press and hold the Sleep/ Wake button, then slide the onscreen slider). Use a soft, slightly damp, lint-free cloth. Avoid getting moisture in openings. Don’t use window cleaners, household cleaners, aerosol sprays, solvents, alcohol, ammonia, or abrasives to clean iPad. The iPad screen has an oleophobic coating; simply wipe the screen with a soft, lint-free cloth to remove oil left by your hands. The ability of this coating to repel oil will diminish over time with normal usage, and rubbing the screen with an abrasive material will further diminish its effect and may scratch your screen.

Not the greatest advice for disinfecting, since water and wiping do little to kill germs.

One way to keep germs off of our device is to use a case and a screen protector, then clean/disinfect those pieces rather than the actual device.

Another way to curb the transmission of germs from a touch-screen device is good old hand hygiene. Washing our hands or using a hand sanitizer before and after we use a touch-screen device will limit the spread of germs.

Now, we got some Splodin’ to do!

(photo courtesy henke on Flickr)








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