Sneeze on your sleeve, not in your hands

We may think we're a sanitary, civilized bunch. So why are most of us still sneezing and coughing into our hands like Bubonic Plague-era boors?

It's no laughing matter, says ear, nose and throat specialist Ben Lounsbury.

In fact, the doctor says, bad sneezing, wheezing and hacking techniques not only spread cold and the flu germs like the plague -- they could lead to the downfall of many when the next pandemic strikes (and infectious disease experts say the world is due).

So, a concerned Lounsbury created a how-to video, to teach the hygienically challenged among us a technique to keep our germs to ourselves. It's simple: cough into your sleeve, stupid.

"It's extremely important (to learn) this year and probably in future years because at some time, a bad flu pandemic is coming," Lounsbury told CTV News from his home in Auburn, Maine.

"People will be getting sick by the thousands -- probably millions -- and people will be dying by the hundreds of thousands from the flu, which is spread by airborne germs."

To get people to actually listen to and act on his gloom-and-doom message, Lounsbury used heavy doses of humour in his ultra low-budget-but-slick instructional video, titled "Why Don't We Do It On Our Sleeves?"

"Millions of disease-causing germs are launched into the atmosphere every time someone coughs or sneezes," an announcer on the video begins, as someone sneezes and an image of a nasty, germ-ridden spray shoots across the screen.

Then follows a re-enaction of a way in which we can pass our cold and flu germs easily on to others: a man sneezes into his hands while talking on the phone; he puts the receiver down; a woman uses the phone; she sits down at her desk to eat, and a donut becomes the conduit between the germs and her mouth.

To avoid this vicious cycle of germ spread, the best place to cough or sneeze, instructs the video, is into fabric.

On phone receivers, doorknobs and other smooth surfaces, germs can survive for several hours and be easily picked up by other people, said Lounsbury.

"So coughing into the sleeve puts the germs into the sleeve where they sit around, dry out and die -- and you don't touch door knobs and telephones with your sleeve."

It's a simple concept, but one the doctor says can be a very difficult one to put into regular practice.

"Coughing into one's hand is a behaviour that has been trained or taught to us by teachers and parents all our lives. It is very difficult to change. It has been ingrained by, in my case, 57 years of life," he told CTV News.

"But it can be changed if we try hard."

*CTV.ca