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Q. My wife washes her hands like she is going to do surgery. She says it takes 30 seconds to get rid of germs. I wash my hands for about 3 seconds. I don’t see any advantage in wasting a lot more time. What do you think? A. Your wife is right. It takes about 30 seconds of vigorous scrubbing and rinsing to wash off most germs. If everyone followed your wife’s good example, there’d be fewer colds passed around each year.
In regard to handwashing, does the chlorine in tap water kill germs? Or is the chlorine level too low to do any good in this regard?
An easy guide to counting those 30 seconds is to mentally sing the alphabet song we learned as children:
(ABCDEFG,
HIJK, LMNOP
QRS and TUV
WX and Y and Z,
Now I know my ABC,
Tell me what you think of me!)