Right Now, Germs Are Spreading Through Your Office Like Wildfire

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You most likely know that your office is a Petri dish of vile contagions, particularly during cold and flu season. But what you might find (disturbingly) surprising is just how quickly and how far those germs can spread throughout the cubicles — reaching up to 60 percent of workers, visitors, and commonly touched objects within just four hours. That’s according to the creepy new findings of noted University of Arizona professor of microbiology Charles Gerba, which he presented recently at the 54th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in Washington, D.C.

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“We were surprised at how fast so many sites got contaminated, pretty much saturating the place in just four hours,” Gerba told Yahoo Health, noting that the most contaminated room — the kitchen, or coffee-break area — was also a bit of a shocker. “That tends to get contaminated right away, although I thought it would be the restroom.” But up to 80 percent of worker bees wash their hands before leaving the bathroom, which explains that finding. (An interesting and also surprising side note, Gerba added: His research revealed that the peak time for male workers to use the bathroom is at 10am, while for women it was at 11am.)

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For the study, Gerba’s team used a traceable virus called MS-2, which is similar to Norovirus — the most common cause of acute gastroenteritis in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and causing an estimated 19 to 21 million illnesses and 570 to 800 deaths a year. The germ was spread onto doorknobs and tabletops at the beginning of the day in office buildings, a conference room, and a healthcare facility, and then searched for on various other surfaces over an eight-hour period. That’s when it was quickly discovered to be contaminating 40 to 60 percent of sampled fomites, or surfaces capable of carrying the organisms.

“What it tells us is that the hand is quicker than the sneeze,” he said, regarding how most office germs are transmitted. While the research used the MS-2 virus, he added, it could certainly be concluded that cold and flu germs would travel with just as much breadth and speed.

But there’s good news, too: Gerba and his team found that cutting down on the germ factor in the office is easy, and that it can be accomplished by simply using hand sanitizers or disinfectant wipes containing quaternary ammonium compounds (QUATS) — found in most brands. That, he found in the follow-up portion of the study, reduced the virus spread by up to 99 percent — when not everyone on the premises used the wipes or sanitizers. He added that it’s a “misconception” that using such products comes with a downside of germs developing a resistance — and noted that their use does not cut down on a person’s natural resistance, either.

Besides resorting to sanitizing products, Gerba suggested various other ways in which to reduce the chances of getting sick at work, including:

•Be a hand washer
It’s pretty basic: Use soap (preferably with the triclosan antibacterial) and water, and wash for 15 seconds (you know, while singing “Happy Birthday”). Gerba suggests do this not only before you leave the bathroom but, armed with this new evidence, after leaving the coffee-break room and possibly even after a meeting. But some suggest not overdoing it. “Having some bacteria on the skin is perfectly natural, and ‘resident flora,’ as the experts call it, is probably healthful — unless you’re a surgeon about to put your hands inside someone’s body,” according to a Harvard Health Publication on hand washing. “Frequent hand washing, even with mild soap, can damage skin, worsening cuts and causing cracks that can harbor even more bacteria. Dry, damaged skin may also spread germs more easily because it flakes off, taking bacteria with it.”

•Press elevator buttons — and other surfaces — with care
“I knuckle elevator buttons,” Gerba said, “particularly the one for the first floor, which is the worst, since everyone touches it.” Using a dab of hand sanitizer afterward wouldn’t hurt either, he noted — same as with the “send” button on a fax machine or the “copy” button on a Xerox machine. And don’t let your guard down when you head out to lunch, as those touch screens you’ll increasingly find at checkouts, he said, “have more germs on them than a toilet seat.” Ick. It’s enough to freak even the most lax among us — although Gerba noted, “I’m trying not to be phobic.”