Test your Germ Smarts - are you ready for cold and flu season?

Oct. 20, 2010 - PRLog -- The sunscreen is put away, school is back in swing.  After a long hot summer, cooling weather is a welcome relief but not just for us humanoids. Viruses and bacteria are pretty darn happy as well because they multiply better in colder weather and do not live as long in warm weather. Hence, we all get to look forward to the onslaught of the cold and flu season.  
Test your Germ Smarts to see how prepared you are for the battle against colds and flu’s sweeping through your home, school or office.

1. How many germy surfaces (doorknobs, light switches, shopping cart handles, counters, toys, keyboards, ATM’s etc) can you touch in 1 minute?    

An often said statistic is 300 in half an hour or 10 in 1 minute. In 1 minute you could pick up germs left by others that can get you sick from 10 surfaces.

2. How often do we wash our hands?

One survey says 6 times a day. That may be optimistic. Since we are awake approx 16 hrs a day that translates into once every 2.5 hours. Your palms have potentially touched 1500 potentially germy surfaces between washings.

3. How long do germs live on hands?

Depending on the germ, anywhere from 2 – 24 hours.  

4. True or False - getting germs on your hands is how you get sick

Not unless you have open sores on your hands. Touching your face with your hands and transferring germs to your mouth, nose, eyes and ears is how germs get inside us and make us sick

5. How many times do we touch our face?

16 times in an hour or once every 3 minutes.

6. How many times can you cough or sneeze in 1 hour?

No clear statistics on this but some suggest up to 20 times an hour or once every 3 minutes when you are sick. Covering coughs or sneezes with the palm of your hand can infect 10 surfaces you touch for every minute until you wash your hands 20 seconds with soap and warm water.

7. How many surfaces does an elbow touch in 1 minute?

Less than 5 an hour. Elbows are not used to open doors, pick up toys, flick on light switches, turn on faucets, work on keyboards and joysticks etc. You really have to work at it to touch things with your elbow.  

If we touch 10 potentially germy surfaces in a minute, touch our face once every 3 minutes and only wash our hands once every 2.5 hours, we expose ourselves to 1500 surfaces and have touched our face 50 times between washings. Wow, so many opportunities for the germs!
Since washing more often is not always practical and washing hands before we touch our face (approx every 3 minutes) is almost impossible, reducing how much you touch your face is the best defense. The Germ Smarts for Kids with Germy Wormy ® Germ Stoppers 5 list below has great suggestions for how to defend your face and hands!

If a person coughs or sneezes once every 3 minutes and uses their hands to cover their cough and only washed their hands every 2.5 hours, they have potentially infected 1500 surfaces. Tissues are not always available and we don’t carry sinks in our back pockets so how can we cover without using our hands?

Jumping on the “Cough and sneeze into your elbow or sleeve” bandwagon eliminates infecting all of those surfaces. This concept is slowly replacing the cover your cough with your hands that most of us were taught and is highly recommended by the CDC and most of the medical community.

Margaret Back, creator of the Germ Smarts for Kids with Germy Wormy ® program says “Staying healthy all boils down to 2 things – don’t get germs and don’t give germs. I created Germ Stoppers 5 to help my children remember healthy habits so they don’t get germs and have to admit they help me remember as well. Back Enterprises, LLC is happy to announce the addition of a reminder poster for Germ Stoppers 5 and cough and sneeze into your sleeve that makes learning these healthy habits a snap. "

Germ Stoppers 5
1. If you need to touch your face, the back of the hand is the place.
•  You don’t touch potentially germy surfaces with the back of your hand, you do it with your palm. Using your palm to touch your face is like creating an autobahn for germs.
2. Keep bad germs from getting inside you – no fingers, hands or things in your mouth, eyes, ears and nose.
• Germs are invisible so kids don’t realize that they are giving germs a ride when they put things in their mouth. On the Germ Smart for Kids DVD, germs become visible as glitter glue and show how they can spread - It is fun to watch the kids eye pop when they see it!
3. Things that touch mouths are not for sharing.
• This is a great one liner to use with kids when they reach for a siblings cup or food and an often forgot method of transportation that germs love.
4. Make sure you keep your distance when someone is sick – no hugging or kissing until everyone is better.
• This one is probably the hardest with kids but one of the top reasons moms get sick when their kids get sick.
5. Wash your hands and face with soap and water – sing the ABC song!
• Nothing like having kids see “glitter glue” germs on the DVD to make getting them to wash their hands and face soo much easier.

On the "don’t give germs" side of the coin, the program also includes a disposable sleeve with a cute germ loving character called Germy Wormy® who helps make cough and sneeze into your sleeve fun for kids (they get to feed the Germy Wormy) and keeps little sleeves clean.

Germ Stoppers 5 and cough and sneeze into your elbow/sleeve can make a serious difference in how often you and your family get sick this cold and flu season.

For more information please contact:

Margaret Back
President, Back Enterprises, LLC
Germy Wormy Germ Smart for Kids

http://www.germywormy.com/?Click=615
888-437-6988

Raise Kids Germ Smarts - reduce the spread of colds and flu's!
Give kids a PLACE to give their germs to - instead of everywhere else!

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Germ Smarts for Kids with Germy Wormy makes teaching kids healthy hygiene habit fun, fast and easy. Raise kids Germ Smarts and reduce the spread of colds and flu's!