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Next time you are at a gathering, turn yourself into a public health anthropologist. It’s fascinating.
Case in point…
The other day, I was at an event where the hostess had a number of volunteers helping her prepare the food and drink spread.
As the rest of the crowd networked and mingled, I watched the preparation taking place.
I lost count of the number of times after which one of the women (and they were all women helping her) touched a mouth, nose, or eyes and then touched the food.
I know it wasn’t intentional, it was unconscious, but they were doing it. Then, they were touching doorknobs and trashcans and all kinds of other places where viruses might lurk.
Soon after, I turned my attention to the crowd and would follow the same interactions.
One person would sneeze and then, without wiping his hands, would shake the hand of another person, who would promptly go off and shake the hand of yet another person, who then touched his nose.
Over and over again this happened.
I’m not trying to turn us into a nation of Howard Hugheses or anything like that, I’m just keenly aware now (having had my H1N1 vaccine and my plane chat with Susanne) of how these behaviors could have traumatic consequences.
And now (shout out to my aunt for this one), here is a video of Sec’y of Health, Kathleen Sebelius lecturing NBC correspondent, Chuck Todd on how to sneeze.
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