I'll Take 166 for 2020

Do you have COVID-19 fatigue? I admit, I may be a titch fatigued.  You can only repeat the same thing so many times and hope for different results – basically Einstein’s definition of insanity.  Wear masks, wash your hands, keep 6-feet apart. Did I say wash your hands?

This week was back to school for many kids in North America.   I may have been a bit of a Drill Sergeant with my son, making him repeat until I was confident he understood how he was to take off his mask, what he was to do with his dirty mask and what he was to do before he touched his new clean mask (sanitize his hands, if you didn’t guess).  He came home with 3 wet masks, used the hand sanitizer, but did not use the facial wipes and complained that his face felt gross.  Some of his classmates only had 1 mask.  Wearing 1 mask per day to me is like leaving your baby in a wet diaper.  I would highly recommend frequently changing masks throughout the day, especially if you have teens with hormonal skin that is prone to acne.

This week also signifies a momentous event in infection prevention. On September 8, 1854, John Snow removed the handle from the Broad Street pump in conducting some of the earliest epidemiologic work and stopping a Cholera outbreak.  This serves to remind us of the impact that infections, outbreaks, and pandemics have had on our life – 166 years is a long time, yet today we still have issues with water quality and its impact on human health.

November signifies another important step in infection control and public health.  Florence Nightingale showed up in November 1854 with a group of nurses to support wounded soldiers during the Crimean War. Appalled by what she saw, she brought food from England, cleaned up the kitchens, and she and her nurses started cleaning up the hospital wards and kitchen, believing the main problems were diet, dirt, and drains.  So began the understanding the need to distance beds (aka physical distancing to stop transmission of infections) and sanitation through the understanding that a clean environment and clean linens would also help stave off infections.

As we enter yet another month of the pandemic, do not let your guard down.  Follow the recommendations our Public Health experts are providing. Wash your hands often.  Wear a mask.  Keep your distance and - if you’re like my son who questions the cleanliness of his school’s bathroom because boys can be messy - increase the frequency of cleaning and disinfection at home, at work and at school.  My son has a stash of disinfectant wipes he packed so he could clean if things look gross.

Bugging Off!

Nicole

Are You Singing the Back to School Blues or Wahoos?!

I hope you’ll play along this week with my change up from writing to vlogging.  I’m an amateur when it comes to movie making, but here it goes!

I have 4 back to school tips:

Masks protocols and hand hygiene.

Pencil cases: Washable versus Wipeable.

Odds and sods to minimize transmission.

Hygiene, cleaning, and disinfection.

School is going to look different this year, but remember germs have always been present.  For those that have decided to send their children back, we need to keep calm and wipe on!

Bugging Off!

Nicole

Cleaning and Disinfection for Healthy Schools

August is always a bittersweet time of the year. It’s sweet as it’s the month of both my and my brother’s wedding anniversaries, and it’s bitter because the nights get cooler.  For many parts of the world, August means back to school shopping and for many parents, the end of August can’t come soon enough to get kids back to school.  This year, back-to-school is also bittersweet.  There is concern with what potential there is for COVID-19 spreading within the classrooms, but on the other hand, there is the recognition that our children need to get back to some sense of normalcy.

For some, after five months, the initial anxiety surrounding COVID-19 is wearing off and we’re becoming accustomed to life in masks.  However, with the emails many parents are receiving regarding back-to-school  plans, followed by changes in recommendations and widely different strategies being used across North America in order to reopen schools, many are concerned we are using our children as subjects of an experiment with more confounding variables than we can control for.

Data from the CDC indicate that <1% of the hospitalizations among 508 cases reviewed were <19 years old and none of the cases <19 years old were admitted to the ICU.  One of the concerns with children, however, is the fact that 2 – 4 weeks after initial infection, a very small percentage children develop a more severe disease known as Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome. It is certainly understandable why as a parent, our anxiety may be increasing as the start of school draws nearer. 

However, all is not lost.  We do have experts working together to create the right plans and helping to ensure the safety of our children.  We have our Medical Officers of Health and Infection Control Experts supporting and recommending needs; however, we also have organizations that are experts in cleaning and disinfection putting together recommendations to support the ability to keep schools clean and free of germs.  One well-put-together document is from Health Green Schools & Colleges.  Their guideline outlines practices for cleaning and disinfection practices that can be taken to care for the health of school staff and their charges.

A key way to reduce spread is to increase the frequency of cleaning and disinfection, especially high-touch surfaces like student desks, stair railings, doorknobs, and light switches. We also need to look at removing hard to disinfect soft surfaces and items like rugs, fabric covered chairs and pillows and perhaps even some hard surfaces like touchscreens and remote controls.  As we look at increasing frequency of cleaning, this also means that there could be an increase chance of exposure to disinfecting chemicals.  This highlights the importance of choosing a responsible product that provides a balance between efficacy and safety as well as considering how products will be applied. 

What would be my recommendation for implementing a cleaning and disinfection program for my son’s school?

1. Choose a product that does not carry any health and safety concerns, meaning it is non-toxic and non-irritating to eyes and skin.
2. Choose a product with a contact time of 3 minutes or less for the high-touch surfaces to ensure when applied the contact time can be achieved.  
3. Move away from a spray-wipe application.  This reduces the generation of aerosols which can impact indoor air quality, but more importantly, using a pre-moistened wipe allows for a one and done process that can reduce time while providing the most effective results.  
4. Training. Cleaning for health is different than cleaning for appearance. The need for proper application, adherence to contact time and focusing on the most important surfaces is key.

As a parent, we also need to help support efforts by teaching our kids infection control practices that will further help reduce the chance of transmission – I’ll touch more on that next week!

Bugging Off!

Nicole

Making Vacation Memories and Waves

This week I’m enjoying a much needed family vacation and making the most out of our COVID-19 summer!  As Dali Lama once said, “The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”  Enjoying nature, playing on the water and getting the opportunity to watch this Monarch Caterpillar become a butterfly is making me happy!