Why will you not wash your hands? Seriously, it’s not that hard. It doesn’t take that long. And everyone else in the bathroom is going to give you the side-eye if you don’t do it.
另外,你需要用肥皂。“把你的手放到水里,然后把它们擦干”的事情实际上并不包括任何洗涤。The germs don’t actually flee from water alone (即使他们确实逃离了一些——但不是全部!- of those sanitizing hand gels).
Don’t think it’s that big of a deal?
It’s that big of a deal. If there has been a time in the past week when you haven’t washed your hands after going to the bathroom or before eating, then I need you to watch the TED talk byMyriam Sidibeon thepower of hand-washing with soap. If you have washed your hands every single time this week, watch it anyway for bonus points, and also because it’s seriously compelling and is less than 12 minutes long.
The list of diseases that just washing your hands with soap can protect you from is astounding: the common cold. Stomach bugs.Shigellosis. Cholera. The flu. Freakingebola!
当然,更重要的是,当你用肥皂洗手时,你要保护的所有脆弱人群的名单。你不需要了解他们就可以用这种方式保护他们,你甚至不需要知道你生病了。真实的故事:我曾经百日咳了大概三周,却没有意识到自己得了百日咳。在那段时间里,我在全国各地旅行,去了几个全国人口最多的旅游景点。哦!
至少我洗手了?
Vulnerable populations could be said to include not just the immune-compromised or the very young and very old, but also those for whom hand-washing with soap is not a cultural practice. This was news to me, this fact that some cultures do not commonly practice hand-washing, and I can see Sidibe’s optimism, in her talk, that simply changing this one feature could prevent so much childhood death and disease. I also admit that her action plan to recruit soap companies to advertise to these populations, spreading the promotion of hand-washing as they do so, is genius.
And yet it still feels gross to me (not as gross as a pair of unwashed hands, but gross nevertheless) that one would have to rely on a for-profit company, going about its for-profit business, to spread a vital public service message. The companies that have pockets deep enough to advertise this message are also going to make those pockets even deeper with the success of that message, since they’re selling soap, not giving it away.
What you really need to do, of course, to thwart the Man, protect vulnerable populations, and keep diarrhea at bay, is toMAKE your soap. Handmade soap doesn’t contain artificial antibacterial agents, packaging headed for the landfill, or a price tag designed to deepen company pockets. It smells just the way you want it to smell, looks just the way you want it to look, and washes the poop off of your hands just as well as the store-bought stuff.
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