Happy National Handwashing Awareness Week

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls handwashing “a do-it-yourself vaccine” and suggests remembering five easy steps: Wet, lather, scrub, rinse, and dry.

Proper hand hygiene can help reduce infections by washing your hands thoroughly with soap and water or cleaning your hands with a waterless, alcohol-based sanitizer. The CDC’s hand hygiene guidelines remind everyone to scrub for at least 20 seconds several times a day including

• Before and after caring for someone who is sick
• Before and after treating a cut or wound.
• After blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing.
• After touching an animal, animal food, or animal waste.
• After touching garbage.

The experts say if you’re not sure if you should wash your hands … you should probably go ahead and wash them.

Stay healthy Linn-Mar!