Pictures that show how to stop Covid brewing trouble in your office

The secret really IS simple, as our unique experiment reveals

The message has been clear: washing or sanitising your hands frequently and thoroughly, and wearing a mask when required, are key to making a safe return to the office.

Masks provide a physical block to the coronavirus, which is mainly airborne, explains Sally Bloomfield, an honorary professor at the London School of hygiene & Tropical Medicine. ‘When we breathe or talk or cough, we spray particles into the air,’ she says. ‘If someone has Covid-19, those virus particles can travel, and if someone else is near, they can become infected by breathing them in. Those particles can also settle on a nearby surface. If someone touches that surface and then their mouth, nose or eyes, they may become infected.’

Whether infection spreads, and if so, how far, is very much affected by the choices you make at the sink, says Professor Bloomfield.

handwashing can prevent up to 20 per cent of respiratory infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet a 2017 survey by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society shows that 84 per cent of British adults don’t wash their hands effectively.

even during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, only 53 per cent of people washed their hands more frequently, according to a study by harvard University. And Brits were the most lax hand washers of the five countries studied: Argentina, Japan, Mexico, the U.S. and the UK.

Washing your hands physically removes the virus from them. Soap helps loosen the germs, and manually scrubbing lifts them further, before the water washes them down the sink.

hand sanitiser, meanwhile, kills the germs in situ. Sanitiser with an alcohol content of more than 70 per cent will breach the cell membrane surrounding the virus particles, causing them to break down. ‘Where you cannot wash your hands, use sanitiser — done properly, they are both effective,’ says Professor Bloomfield.

When handwashing, wet your hands thoroughly, apply enough soap to cover them, and remember to clean wrists, and in between the fingers, around the thumb and under the nails. ‘That said, the most vital areas are the palms and fingertips, as we use these areas to touch other things,’ says Professor Bloomfield.

The importance of good hand hygiene can be seen in these pictures, which show how easily particles can be left on your hands, to then be transferred onto surfaces others may touch.

We Do not know how many virus particles constitute an ‘infectious dose’ of Covid-19, though some experts suggest it is a few hundred or thousand. For reference, a cough or sneeze from a person with flu can contain as many as 200 million virus particles.

To simulate the way germs such as SARSCoV-2 — the virus which causes Covid-19 — cling to skin, I covered my hands in Glo Germ, a clear gel that glows blue-white under UV light. This is used by professionals to demonstrate good handwashing technique.

I then went through the motions of a typical day in the workplace after using different handwashing methods.

The first time, I washed my hands according to NhS guidelines: scrubbing with soap for two rounds of the happy Birthday song, or 20 seconds. Next, I tried the ‘quick rinse’ for six seconds with no soap. This is the average length of time most of us spend washing our hands, research suggests. Lastly, I didn’t wash my hands at all — just like the 61 per cent of men and 37 per cent of women in the UK who, according to research, don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom.

In each scenario, I then made my way through the office. I opened the bathroom door, worked at my desk, used the communal kitchen to make tea, and ate a sandwich at my desk.

Photos were taken of the results under UV light, as well as of my hands at the start of the experiment, and then, at the end, my face. The face matters, as it is where coronavirus enters. The ‘germs’ are shown as white patches — the denser the patch, the more ‘virus’ there is.