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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

New Zealand : Yuck: Few people correctly cover coughs, sneezes

An interesting from the Associated Press, exceprt :

" Alas, here's more proof that most people have habits that aren't very sanitary - and sometimes can be plain disgusting.

For a study, medical students secretly watched hundreds of people cough or sneeze at a train station, a shopping mall and a hospital in New Zealand. What they saw wasn't pretty, with most people failing to properly prevent an airborne explosion of infectious germs.

The work was done in the capital city of Wellington over two weeks last August, at the tail end of a worrisome but fairly mild wave of swine flu illnesses. It was a time when the pandemic was international news, and public health campaigns were telling children and adults to be careful about spreading the virus.

The good news is that about three of every four people tried to cover their cough or sneeze, in at least a token attempt to prevent germs from flying through the air.

The bad news is that most people - about two of three - used their hands to do it."

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