The hand sanitizer is a good idea. Mayor Bloomberg also sees no risk in sending kids to toxic waste sites that haven't been cleaned properly. After all, none of his family attend public schools.
My kid, in a suburban public school, has been getting letters advising on how to avoid infection several times a week. They're taking the threat quite seriously around here.
A nursing student at Molloy College told my daughter yesterday, after a rumor circulated that a Molloy kid had the MRSA, that the anti bacterial handsoaps do more harm than good. They destroy all bacteria good and bad, and destroying the bad can lead to more problms.
I heard that about sanitizer too, but then I read a piece in the Washington Post by one of their consumer affairs people that said hand sanitizer really doesn't kill bacteria, despite the claims of marketers to the contrary. Apparently it acts just like soap and loosens the germs on your hands so that they can be washed (or in this case, scraped) off.
I dunno, to be on the safe side, I'mgoing to keep using it. You have no idea how dirty my school is. Even the school soap makes your hands dirty there.
The above comment raises the ever-troubling question, "What is reakity?"
In one of the female staff bathrooms at Packeminanscrewem High today, there was, by the middle of the afternoon, no soap or paper towels. The "scare" lasted less than 48 hours in the school, while the "custodial" staff disappeared into the sub basement in the bowels of the school to party and do whatever it is they do; it certainly isn't basic cleaning. So much for concern for both staff and students. As usual, there is none. Luckily, I have hand sanitizer.
"reakity" is my Halloween pseudonym.
Actually, it's a typo.
Where I work, all staff use the same bathroom. We just have to knock/scream: "....anybody here!?", especially the female teachers. The custodians just sweep on Fridays. They don't mop the floors. The stairs are always dirty, with cans and school-lunch food. The stairs also smell like urine. It's disgusting. My school is in Brooklyn, near the Williamsburg Bridge.
I have a ginormous pump bottle of hand sanitizer in my classroom that I encourage the kids to use. I gladly pay for it myself.
Our school hasn't taken any unusual steps to deal with the MRSA issue, other than the occasional fyi from the nurse. She instructed us to send any kid with open wounds to her instead of just dealing with it in the classroom. Someone said that MRSA cells can live on a surface for 300 days. I think hepatitis (don't know which one) can live for like 10. This could turn me into a germophobe right quick.
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