Industry News
Brains
According to experts, you should probably ditch the Purell and just keep washing your hands until it hurts. The Center(s) for Disease Control has recommended washing hands often and wearing a face covering or mask. However, experts are concerned that over-using hand sanitizer could cause potential health risks. Hand sanitizer may actually not be as effective as thoroughly washing one’s hands often, wearing a mask, and avoiding touching one’s face. Hand sanitizer often works in a pinch when soap and hot water are not around but it has also proven to cause rashes and cracking of the skin, according to Centura Health.
Therefore, the CDC recommends people always prioritize washing their hands overusing hand sanitizer as a number one option because hand-washing is more effective at reducing the amounts of all types of germs. In addition, the CDC warns that people should NOT use hand sanitizer in lieu of hot water and soap if there is access to soap and water, or if one’s hands are visibly dirty. The same goes if someone has recently used the restroom or had changed a baby’s diaper.
Time magazine recently credited the Food and Drug Administration with the following statement: “Some data suggest that long-term exposure to certain active ingredients used in antibacterial products — for example, triclosan (liquid soaps) and triclocarban (bar soaps) — could pose health risks, such as bacterial resistance or hormonal effects.”
There are obviously many ways to avoid contracting viruses like the one on the edge of everyone’s mind. Like most skiers and riders know, you have to have the right quiver of gear for the right conditions.
Ok Brains, get back to work! Ditch sanitizer? Come on- if you’re next to a sink, use it. Understand that hand sanitizer is not a cleaner, but it kills germs, use it when you’ve touched things you don’t know are clean and you return to a place that is, like your car or house. Keep those clean, you can relax when you’re there.
Antibacterial products like soap are a different deal: All soap is antibacterial, antiviral and it cleans. Soaps with added, low-grade antibiotics can help bacteria develop a resistance to those antibiotics. So giving those to animals, using them in soap and otherwise spreading them around is fairly stupid, knowing that the more we use them thoughtlessly the less effective they will be. Soap doesn’t need it, hand sanitizer doesn’t use it. Covid is not a bacteria, antibiotics do not work on it.
Masks, is it really so hard? WHO, like the CDC is in a bind when it has to choose between ideal and useful advise. If masks are unavailable, what good is recommending them? We can get masks in this country. Maybe not N95’s, but cloth and surgical masks that protect ourselves and others.
Right now, normal is a S. show. If you want to “go back to normal”, keep doing what you’ve always done. If you want normal to be better than this, make the changes that requires–do your part to protect yourself, limit the spread. Wear a mask when you interact with others who you are not living with. It will protect you. If you are sick and don’t know it–which turns out many, many people are–you will protect everyone you contact. You don’t want to wear a mask? don’t go out and interact with other people.
Last thing, ski hills can’t exist economically if our lines need 6′ between us and we ride the chairs by ourselves. If we can’t eat and drink and shop at them, they won’t be there for us. If you can afford to heli-ski all winter, don’t worry about that. If you can’t, then be a part of the solution, not the problem.
But I just saw that the WHO recommended not wearing a mask anymore, unless you exhibit symptoms or are treating a patient who’s already got the virus, and just practicing good hygiene instead. Which supposed ‘expert’ should we believe today?