That Didn't Take Long

Do teachers ever stop complaining about getting sick? End of the second week in school and already I have my first cold, along with several colleagues and a good number of students in a pretty small school. Fortunately it is not serious, a relatively minor version (as of now, it could get worse) and if I really wanted to I could even do some exercise in spite of it, but I've been good lately so I can take a few days off without much guilt or worry.

What has me particularly annoyed, though, is what I've discovered about those gel-type hand "sanitizers" along the way. In August I bought a big economy bottle of the stuff hoping that using it liberally might cut down on some of the colds I get every year - I still average 5-6 per school year, some of them lingering for 2 or more weeks - "Kills 99.99% of germs and bacteria..." Sure. Umm, could you define "germ?"

Turns out that 0.01% of germs that don't have to worry about hand sanitizers includes the cold viruses, which are the number one problem among most people in the civilized world when it comes to pathogens that make us sick on a regular basis. I would give up just about any pleasureable, non-essential activity you can think of for freedom from these dreaded almost-living particles that exist for no other reason that to make me misreable.

So, when a colleague mentioned that those products don't work on viruses, I argued that they were all alcohol based and I thought alcohol killed everything? Not exactly. I came home and did a little research, and it turns out that alcohol is not effective against nonenveloped viruses, and wouldn't you know it, most of the viruses that cause the common cold are nonenveloped viruses - both the rhinoviruses and adenoviruses.

The other important point about hand sanitizers is that the jury seems to still be out as to whether cold viruses are more likely spread in the first place through hand-to-nose contact or through the air, in which case no hand sanitizer will help anyway, even one that might be effective at killing these viruses.

Bottom line, I'll still use it when I get off the subways and buses - no telling WHAT nasty bugs I might get on my hands there and better safe than sorry. But at school, I don't see much use in the products.