Pia Hansen: Handwashing, not panic, best response

It turns out your grandmother, your mom and your teachers all were right: Always wash your hands, and don’t pick your nose.

I can’t think of a scarier thing to arrive this Halloween than that superbug. You know, the one that goes by MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), the one we are having a more and more difficult time knocking out with common antibiotics.

I’m sure the scary little creep is lurking right here on my desk – if you could see my desk you’d agree.

Here we are all worried about World War III and shoe bombers and trans-fats and global warming, when it’s something so small we can’t see it with the naked eye that has real potential to make a dent in our population.

Now there’s an idea for a last-minute scary Halloween costume: go as MRSA. I’m not sure what the critter looks like – the images I find online look mostly like little transparent clusters of golf balls – so try for something amoeba-like and perhaps slightly fluorescent and you’ll be fine.

What struck me this Monday, as news came out of Ramsey Elementary School that two students and a staff member were infected with MRSA, is that against this newly resistant bug, the preventive treatment was old-fashioned:

They set out to scrub down the school from one end to the other.

My heart goes out to the students and the staff – and anyone else – who’s dealing with this nasty infection. I completely understand how scary this must be.

And I wasn’t really reassured by all the health professionals – locally and nationally – who stood up and said things along the lines of how MRSA is nothing new, it’s still treatable, and “these infections are fairly common.”

They added something along the lines of “don’t panic” – and then reminded us media types to not use terms such as “killer germ” and “superbug.”

Here we are at the beginning of the season of wet sneezes – I just heard three coming from various corners of my newsroom – and we aren’t supposed to panic?

Personally, I’m pretty far from being germophobic (the correct word for an abnormal fear of germs is microphobia or spermophobia) but suddenly I noticed the bucket of wipes at the grocery store. And I’ve washed my hands an extra three times today, compared to what I usually do.

I bet there are parents right now contemplating how best to disinfect Halloween candy without inflicting damage on the candy or the kids involved.

There are probably also houses where little trick-or-treaters will be greeted or sent off with a blast of Lysol and disinfectant hand wipes tonight.

Let’s do our best – please – to try not to panic.

Before we start searching for complete body condoms or little space suits for our kids to wear to school, let’s try with some common sense.

Let’s wash our hands with hot water and soap, and keep the same hands out of our eyes, ears and noses. Let’s not share personal items like razors and towels with each other. And let’s use Band-Aids when needed. The Mayo Clinic lists these things among the best preventive measures we can take.

Fear is a great motivator, so as long as MRSA is at the top of the news, I’m sure we’ll clean our counters and bathrooms and desks a little bit better than we usually do. And making a difference in infection rates is probably the only way we can avoid complete hysteria.