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Dear Editor
I worked in China throughout the SARS coronavirus episode. A lesson we took on board early ( but not early enough) was that the MESSAGE not to touch your face was more important than the MESSAGE to wash your hands because it is so difficult to comply. We are thought to touch our faces more than 15 times an hour.
eg current fears in the UK mean
-on the one hand it is only the extraordinary who will not wash their hands
-on the other hand it is also only the extraordinary who will get through the day without unintentionally touching their faces
To underline the relative importance of the message, it was changed to a blunt - touching your face could kill you.
Also
a)no matter how many times you wash your hands you cannot guarantee the next thing / things you touch are virus free and
b) to be extreme , your could have faeces soiled hands but as long as you never touch your face with them you will not transmit any of the asssociated germs to your vulnerable surfaces.
The facts that
- on the media and all around I hear the hand washing message many times a day (last week even randomly interviewed revellers at Cheltenham spontaneously brought it up) but one is lucky to hear the DTYFace message a couple of times a week
- when I repeatedly mention this at work , colleagues often don't remove their hands from their face or indulge in conversation quoting " hand washing is just as important" ( completely missing the point|)
- As part of my emergency retraining to help in ICU roles the NHS is providing videos in which presenters can be seen touching their faces as they warn us not to do same
- many times a week we hear "buddying up" suggested in the NHS for PPE use and mental well being. A similar process , amongst other mechanisms, has been accepted by the government from NUDGE theory to deal with face touching but it's had very little exposure.
All makes me very concerned that the relative importance for self protection of the very simple but very hard to follow DTFY message, is being ignored.
Dr B Bukunola , Brighton
Re: Lessons from the frontline of the covid-19 outbreak
Dear Editor
I worked in China throughout the SARS coronavirus episode. A lesson we took on board early ( but not early enough) was that the MESSAGE not to touch your face was more important than the MESSAGE to wash your hands because it is so difficult to comply. We are thought to touch our faces more than 15 times an hour.
eg current fears in the UK mean
-on the one hand it is only the extraordinary who will not wash their hands
-on the other hand it is also only the extraordinary who will get through the day without unintentionally touching their faces
To underline the relative importance of the message, it was changed to a blunt - touching your face could kill you.
Also
a)no matter how many times you wash your hands you cannot guarantee the next thing / things you touch are virus free and
b) to be extreme , your could have faeces soiled hands but as long as you never touch your face with them you will not transmit any of the asssociated germs to your vulnerable surfaces.
The facts that
- on the media and all around I hear the hand washing message many times a day (last week even randomly interviewed revellers at Cheltenham spontaneously brought it up) but one is lucky to hear the DTYFace message a couple of times a week
- when I repeatedly mention this at work , colleagues often don't remove their hands from their face or indulge in conversation quoting " hand washing is just as important" ( completely missing the point|)
- As part of my emergency retraining to help in ICU roles the NHS is providing videos in which presenters can be seen touching their faces as they warn us not to do same
- many times a week we hear "buddying up" suggested in the NHS for PPE use and mental well being. A similar process , amongst other mechanisms, has been accepted by the government from NUDGE theory to deal with face touching but it's had very little exposure.
All makes me very concerned that the relative importance for self protection of the very simple but very hard to follow DTFY message, is being ignored.
Dr B Bukunola , Brighton
Competing interests: No competing interests