MANCHESTER, N.H. (WHDH) - Amid the coronavirus emergency, New England health officials are reminding the public that the best way to protect themselves is with soap and warm water.
At Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, New Hampshire, 7’s Jonathan Hall was given a lesson in handwashing with the help of a special lotion called “Glo-Germ” which is used to teach medical professionals how to properly clean themselves to prevent the spread of germs.
“I like to remind people even when coronavirus, this new novel virus is around, it’s important. But it is always important,” Director of Infection Prevention at Catholic Medical Center Ashley Conley said.
First, Hall was instructed to rub a little “Glo-Germ” into his hands and then to do his best to scrub the “germs” away.
“When you wash your hands, you want to do it for at least 20 seconds. You want to use soap, it doesn’t matter if the water is hot so you can use lukewarm or cool water, that’s OK,” Conley explained. “You always want to make sure that when you’re ready to turn off the faucet, you dry your hands with a paper towel and then use it to turn off the faucet too.”
Finally, in the moment of truth, Conley turned the lights out and the blacklight on and Hall’s hands began to glow showing all the places he missed — where germs could still be residing undetected.
“That is definitely longer than I would normally wash my hands,” Hall admitted looking at his hands glowing underneath the blacklight.
Conley took her tools to visit school children in Nashua to get them up to speed on the proper way to prevent the spread of germs.
She said a low-cost option to try this lesson at home is to use glitter.
“Glitter is really hard to get off your hands,” she said. “It’s a great way to show kids how important it is to use soap, to really lather their hands and then be able to wash it off. So, if you don’t have ‘Glow Germ’ it’s OK you can use glitter too.”
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