Wash Your Hands!

I'm a hospital domestic, noro virus is not killed by hand gel, so hands should be washed with soap and water, especially if you're in public toilets, you don't know what the people who were in before you had,

Oh Ana, I just rest my arm on the escalator handrail, quite safe, whoops, as she goes bowling down the escalator!! I must admit I am more aware of touching things out of the home after I saw one young man take his finger out of his nose and wipe it on the nearest thing, urrgh.

Carrying trays in self service restaurants bothers me, as it's the last thing you touch before eating. Even handling the chairs to manoeuvre oneself into position is a thought. Out comes the hand gel, or a trip to the toilet. I don't like my cutlery put down on a bare table, as the table cleaning leaves a lot to be desired. I like certain cafes where they use paper towels to clean instead of a grotty cloth. I do wash my hands before going to eat, but, as above, you are still touching a lot.

I agree that in our childhood things were different. I too grew up with no running hot water and outside toilets, but I'm sure there were very few tummy bugs around then. In my thirteen years at school, there were no regular outbreaks in schools. The first I remember is when my children were at primary school, when their friends also had it, and the rest of the family. This happened only about three times. These outbreaks appear to be fairly regular now. My DGS' school was closed last year for a deep clean due to this.

We had loads of tummy bugs when I was a child. People used to all noro "gastric flu"

We didn't, JessM We were a clean family, but we didn't agonise about maintaining hospital levels of cleanliness as people do now.

My mother was an excellent cook, but without any formal training, so no theory of bug control, just common sense. She washed her hands before cooking and prepared vegetables before starting on the meat, and she kept work surfaces clean as a matter of pride. We washed our hands after using the toilet out of disgust at not doing so, not because we thought we carried a million germs on our fingers.

We had a bath and changed our clothes once a week - washing everything by hand meant that throwing every garment into the laundry basket daily wasn't on. We washed daily, but deodorants had not yet been invented (or if they had, they hadn't reached us) so my father changed his shirt more often - but not daily. He wasn't in a manual job, so wasn't getting all sweaty and dirty. After school we changed into non-school clothes to keep school clothes for the next day.

We were not dirty or smelly, we were seldom ill, and we have all lived to a good age without serious illness (I don't include my father's cancer or my mother's heart condition)

Maybe there were fewer germs around in those days, or perhaps our exposure to them toughened up our immune systems so that they were more alert and dealt with them faster? Maybe all that playing outdoors made us more resistant?

I do not recall ever having a tummy bug as a child, the first time DH and I became ill was when DD started school.
I assume our systems were healthy because every germ was not scrubbed away with disinfectant, we built up a resistance. Soap and water was the order of the day, wash hands after using toilet and always before eating meals.