We all know that bacteria and viruses, including the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, trigger infections that can be serious and even life-threatening. These germs are easily spread when you touch contaminated objects or surfaces and then touch your nose, mouth or eyes, where the malicious microbes can enter your body and make you ill.

Consider all the objects you touch in a typical day. These may include doorknobs, elevator buttons, door handles, ATM keys, touchscreens and your cellphone, to name a few. When you touch these objects, any germs on their surfaces are transferred to your hands. Then your touch your face.

Think you don’t? The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology estimates that people touch their face at least 23 times an hour!

Frequent handwashing is a powerful tool for avoiding getting sick and spreading germs to others. December 1-7 is National Handwashing Awareness Week. It’s an excellent opportunity for us to take our mothers’ admonitions to heart and revisit the healthy habit of washing our hands.

Handwashing can protect you from COVID-19, respiratory infections such as pneumonia and gastric infections that cause diarrhea. These conditions can be deadly to some people, including older individuals, those with weakened immune systems, infants and children. In fact, about 1.8 million children under age 5 die each year from diarrheal diseases and pneumonia, which are the top two killers of children worldwide.

Educating people about proper handwashing has been shown to reduce the number of people who get sick with diarrhea by 23 to 40 percent. It can also reduce respiratory illnesses, including colds, by 16 to 23 percent. Further, it cuts down absenteeism due to gastrointestinal illness in schoolchildren by 29 to 57 percent.

It’s important to wash your hands thoroughly after using the toilet and changing a baby’s diaper because feces can get on your hands. Studies show that a single gram of human feces, which is about the weight of a paper clip, can contain one trillion germs! Other times you should wash your hands include:

• When your hands are visible dirty
• Before, during and after preparing food
• Before eating
• Before and after caring for a sick person
• Before and after treating a burn or wound
• Before changing contact lenses
• After blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing
• After touching or feeding your pet, walking your dog and handling animal waste
• After touching garbage
• After handling money

Washing your hands with soap and water has been found to eliminate more germs that washing with water alone. The steps for washing hands effectively include:

1. Rinse your hands under clean running water at a comfortable temperature. Warm water isn’t more effective at killing germs than cold water.
2. Apply the soap of your choice. It doesn’t matter if you use bar soap, liquid or foam. Antibacterial soap is not necessary to use every day outside of health care facilities.
3. Lather up for 20 seconds, Be sure to get in between your fingers, on the back of your hands and wrists, and under your nails, where germs collect
4. Rinse and dry thoroughly with a clean towel.
5. If you are using a public restroom, use a paper towel to turn off the faucet and turn the door handle when leaving.

When running water and soap aren’t available, you can clean your hands on the go using a hand sanitizer. Be sure to choose one that contains at least 60 percent alcohol. Ethanol alcohol and isopropyl alcohol ate both acceptable types.

When using a hand sanitizer, place the amount recommended by the manufacturer on your hands and vigorously rub it into both hands. Make sure to cover all areas, including your wrists and under your nails. Continue rubbing until your hands air dry.

If frequent handwashing dries your skin, consider using a moisturizing soap, such as glycerin, or a hand cream or lotion after washing to keep your skin smooth and moist.

Washing your hands only takes 20 seconds. It may be the best time you devote to your health, and the health of others.

When it comes to staying healthy, it helps to remember your mom’s advice to, “Wash your hands.” And the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention backs up your mom. They maintain that, “Keeping hands clean is one of the most important steps we can take to avoid getting sick and spreading germs to others.” Let’s explore why the CDC’s statement is true.

First, consider these germ facts, courtesy of Tri-County Health Care in Minnesota:

• There are between 2 and 10 million bacteria on your fingertips and elbows.
• The number of germs on your fingertips doubles after using the toilet.
• One germ can multiply into more than 8 million germs in one day.
• Nearly 80 percent of illness-causing germs are spread by your hands.
• Germs can survive for up to three hours on your hands.

Here’s another fact: Feces from people or animals, which can get on your hands after you use the toilet, change a diaper, or handle raw meat or pet waste, is a huge source of germs, including Salmonella, E. coli and norovirus. These germs cause diarrhea and can also spread certain respiratory infections such as adenovirus and hand-foot-mouth disease.

According to the CDC, a single gram of human feces, which is about the weight of a paper clip, can contain one trillion germs! If you get these germs on your hands and you don’t wash them off, you can pass them to other people and make them sick. Washing your hands with soap and water clears these germs from your hands and prevents their transmission to others.

In fact, research has shown that proper handwashing can prevent about 30 percent of diarrhea-related illnesses and about 20 percent of respiratory infections, such as colds and flu.

In addition to limiting the transfer of germs to other people, there are other great benefits to keeping your hands clean. It keeps your workplace healthy, decreases the number of food-borne illnesses and keeps kids healthier. It also helps combat the rise in antibiotic resistance because it reduces viral infections that are often incorrectly treated with antibiotics, which causes the germs to become resistant to the antibiotics.

In addition to the millions of bacteria that accumulate on your hands every day, many illness-causing viruses find a home on your hands as well, and frequent handwashing remains the number one tip for preventing the spread of the coronavirus and COVID-19. But handwashing must be done properly, using soap and water.

Proper handwashing requires five simple steps:

• Wet: Put both your hands under clean running water.
• Lather: Apply a generous amount of soap to the inside and back of your hands, as well as your fingertips. Wash for at least 20 seconds. Skip the antibacterial soap. Studies show it’s not any more effective at killing germs than regular soap.
• Scrub: Rub both hands together and move your fingertips around both hands and up to your wrists. You don’t need a scrub brush, and you don’t need to make harsh, scrubbing movements.
• Rinse: Return both hands to the running water and gently wash away the soap.
• Dry: Completely dry the water from both hands.

If you don’t have ready access to soap and water, you can clean your hands using a hand sanitizer. Make sure it contains at least 60 percent alcohol. Sanitizers that contain ethanol alcohol and isopropanol alcohol are acceptable types, but those containing methanol have been recalled by the FDA after reports of adverse and even serious side effects.

When using a hand sanitizer, apply a generous drop to the palm of your hand, enough to cover all surfaces of your hands. Rub the sanitizer across both hands front and back, and your fingertips, until they feel dry,

Remember, hand sanitizers are good in a pinch, but they shouldn’t replace frequent handwashing as the primary method for keeping your hands clean.

We know that frequent, proper handwashing can protect you from COVID-19, as well as from respiratory infections such as colds, flu and even pneumonia. It can also protect against gastrointestinal infections that cause diarrhea. And we can pass on the germs that cause these disorders to others, even if we’re not sick. For many older people, babies and children, and those who have weakened immune systems, these disorders can be deadly.

So what the CDC maintains is definitely true. Keeping our hands clean protects us from getting sick as well as from passing on potentially deadly germs to others. It’s a small price to pay for a healthier life and community, don’t you think?

The staff at Coastal Integrative Healthcare in Edgewater specializes in physical medicine and stem cell therapy, but when the impact of the coronavirus hit their community this week they put their skills to work in another way.

After learning that many of the people in and around Edgewater were running out of hand sanitizer, the Coastal Integrative Healthcare staff created a homemade version of the disinfectant that is offered up for free to area residents.

“We started hearing about a lot of at-risk people who didn’t have hand sanitizer or ran out of it, and because you can’t find it in the stores right now, we decided to make it ourselves to help people out,” says Timothy Steflik, DC, at Coastal Integrative Healthcare.

Using a recipe that one of their staffers knew, the CIH staff created about six gallons of hand sanitizer by mixing four gallons of isopropyl alcohol with two gallons of aloe gel. They then added some scents to it to erase the clinical odor of the alcohol.

“The isopropyl alcohol is what kills the viruses and mixing in the aloe gel gave it some consistency,” Dr. Steflik states. “The different scents make it smell nice, and once we had it made up, we set up a tent in our parking lot and distributed it from there.”

“We set up the tent so that people wouldn’t have to come into our building and touch the doorknobs and stuff, so it was just like some of the restaurants and places like that offering curbside service.”

Coastal Integrative Healthcare began distributing its homemade hand sanitizer this past Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. Shortly before that, a line of people, many of whom had brought their own containers, had assembled to take advantage of the giveaway.

“We also gave out some small containers that we made up ourselves to people who didn’t have one,” Dr. Steflik says. “The people we served were really happy because they literally couldn’t find it any of the stores.”

Coastal Integrative Healthcare’s giveaway also benefitted a nearby medical clinic that had run out of the disinfectant.

“We had several nurses and nurse practitioners come over from the Florida Health Care facility that’s just two businesses away from us,” Dr. Steflik confirms. “And that was important because they’re one of the eight testing centers for COVID-19 in our county and they had run out of it. So we filled up the bottles they brought and then gave them some more.”

Dr. Steflik says he is hoping to make another batch of hand sanitizer to give away to area residents and businesses next week. He’s worried, though, that a shortage of one of the key ingredients will prevent that from happening.

“We’re having a hard time buying isopropyl alcohol right now,” he says. “We have access to it through a distributor that most people don’t have and that’s how we got enough to make the first batch.

But it’s getting harder and harder to find. You can’t even buy it on Amazon right now, but we’re going to keep looking because we want to continue to do what we can to help the people in our community in some way.”