Why Hand Sanitizer Won't Protect You.

With your stock of hand sanitizer, you’re not as healthy as you think.

Just a few months ago, I don’t believe anyone was rushing into the store to purchase hand sanitizer. Even then we knew that washing our hands frequently and using hand sanitizer were good best practices. So, what happened in a short amount of time that caused the world to have a shortage of hand sanitizer?

Coronavirus happened.

My town made world news two weeks ago. It was here where the first outbreak of the coronavirus happened in all of the United States of America. I live in Woodinville, Washington, which before two weeks ago, many would have never heard of my hometown. We are located just East of Seattle and my house is 2.3 miles away from Evergreen Hospital. Our school district was the first to close completely in the USA for up to 14 days and transferred in-class room education to online, virtual experiences for approximately 23,000 students. It would take just 72-hours from the start of online school for us to learn that all schools in our county and two surrounding counties would close for an additional six weeks. This puts my kids out of school right now for a minimum of two months because of this outbreak.

In the greater Seattle area, I have had a front row seat in a community that quickly is closing down. What does that look like?

• My regular 1.5-hour commute had dwindled down to just 17 minutes to downtown Seattle.
• The city of coffee is closing small coffee shops and reducing open hours. 
• Restaurants are closing; small and large restaurants are impacted.
• Hourly employees are already being laid off as most corporate employees are working remotely.
• Events that have gatherings of more than 250 people together have been cancelled.
• Cruises that leave from our port are cancelled.
• March Madness games that were scheduled in Spokane, Washington are cancelled.
• My boutique consulting firm lost 29 training events in just 72-hours.

The economic impact of this is truly yet to fully be reconciled – and all of us here will be impacted.

In the midst of all the closures, it’s been really hard not to give in to fear and panic.

I’m not sure why but someone, somewhere got everyone to believe that we need to stock up on toilet paper, hand sanitizer, disinfectant anything (wipes, cleaners, etc.), medicine and storable food. If you go down the aisle of our groceries stores the shelves that hold these items are bare and when restocked, the line of people waiting to grab their share is huge. Many stores have limited purchases to 1 – 5 depending on the item.

The fear is real, and the belief of scarcity is real.

When you think about the archetype Tragedy of the Commons this is what is playing out in my community and if I had to bet, your community too. Tragedy of the Commons is when multiple people acting in rational self-interest escalate their actions such that they deplete a shared, erodible resource.

I’m not a scientist, researcher or disease expert. Yet, I am a human being with over 20 years of business experience that has provided me with a wealth of knowledge and information that I use for my own consulting practice. So, if you will, stick with me for a minute.

I want to introduce you to someone we all have become acquainted with recently - Fear with a capital “F”. Fear is an extremely powerful and influential person, who can get people to react and respond quickly. Fear has a reputation for causing people to move quickly, to respond under pressure and make quick decisions. All of this is why we sometimes value and appreciate Fear being in our lives. When Fear comes into the room with us, it causes us to be focused on that one thing. It causes us to respond sometimes in ways that don’t totally make sense. It makes us feel compelled to DO something to protect us.

Fear walks into the grocery store and purchases a bottle of hand sanitizer, which is something that typically Fear won’t purchase. As Fear grabs the bottle, Fear realizes that there are only five bottles remaining, so without thinking Fear purchases all the remaining bottles. Fear isn’t sure what to do with all this hand sanitizer but knows the family will be protected for a long time with all this hand sanitizer. And, in fact, Fear loops the store again stocking up on toilet paper, medicine and storable food to ensure everyone at home will have what they need for the next six months.

Fear isn’t alone.

Across the city there are many, many people who Fear is visiting who are all behaving in the same manner. Before long, Fear has purchased all of the hand sanitizer and other products across the state.

After Fear has been through the grocery store, Fear starts talking to even more friends. Afterall, Fear loves company. So before long, others have forgotten their identity, and everyone believes they are Fear too.

And the cycle starts all over again. Except this time, a new friend arrives – Panic.

Panic is Fear on steroids and together they create a vicious cycle that now has all the people named Panic making their own hand sanitizer. It doesn’t take long before all the alcohol, aloe and other products needed to make hand sanitizer are also sold out.

However, Fear and Panic don’t realize there are a lot of other people in their city. The names of these people vary widely from Grounded, Not Concerned, Distracted, Disbelief, Shock, Curious, Caution, Normal, Multi-taskers, Calm, etc. The list of the others goes on and on.

Fear and Panic also don’t realize that all these other people, who can’t get hand sanitizer are out and about visiting many of the same places as Fear and Panic themselves. Everyone is going to the gas station to get gas, opening the refrigerator in the grocery store to purchase milk, withdrawing money from the ATM, and doing whatever needs to be done as they prepare for (or some even not preparing for) this outbreak.

The thing is, as much as everyone wants to wash their hands multiple times a day, it’s not realistic because as everyone purchases gas, visits the ATM, buys milk, there aren’t enough sinks with running water and soap around for the entire community to wash their hands. Since Fear and Panic purchased all the hand sanitizer, the rest of the community is spreading germs quickly - actually faster than Fear and Panic because there are just more people around than all of Fear and Panic combined.

Unintentionally, everyone sits in a vicious circle of spreading germs around at an extremely fast rate.

This vicious circle causes Fear and Panic to use more and more of their hand sanitizer faster than what they thought they would. Now this causes them to start stealing and hiding the hand sanitizer in public places because they believe they might “run out”. As Fear and Panic stock up on an abundance of hand sanitizer, Exploit joins the group. Exploit in some cases stock up on over 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer; therefore, Exploit is highlighted in the news. Because of Fear, Panic and Exploit the rest of the community loses resources. Others who truly need it can’t get it which might cause even more problems.

Are you still with me?

So, let’s step out of my example to gain perspective on our current day-to-day threat of catching coronavirus and think bigger for a moment.

While I don’t want to minimize the pace at which this virus is spreading or its seriousness, I do want to call out why hand sanitizer might not keep you as safe as you think.

• It has been proven that truly the best defense is to wash our hand with soap and water for 20-30 seconds. When hand washing isn’t available, then yes, hand sanitizer is a great option. For all of us at home, we can wash our hands with soap and water, so hand sanitizer at home isn’t really a necessity.

Given that people do go out in public, some for necessities and others for non-necessities, for many reasons, people are still in public where the ability to wash hands with soap and water is not always an option. As said earlier, we all do things like go to the grocery store, use the ATM and pump gas. Let’s visit the gas pump together:

Only Fear using hand sanitizer:

The number six is used, because Fear purchased a total of six bottles of hand sanitizer at the grocery store. Yet, this number is actually much, much higher if you consider the amount of people who use a gas pump daily.

• Five people, without hand sanitizer, use the gas pump, before Fear. 
• When Fear approaches the gas pump, Fear uses hand sanitizer.
• Fear with hand sanitizer, has to “fight” germs from the 5 prior people who used the gas pump.
• Fear pumps gas and then uses hand sanitizer again.
• While Fear was pumping gas, Fear’s jacket sleeve rubbed up against the gas pump. Fear didn’t realize this.
• 14 days later, Fear develops flu-like symptoms.

All six people using hand sanitizer:

• Six people, including Fear, use hand sanitizer before using the gas pump.
• When Fear uses the gas pump after the five previous people, the gas pump is fairly clean of germs.
• Fear pumps gas and then uses hand sanitizer again.
• While Fear was pumping gas, Fear’s jacket sleeve rubbed up again the gas pump. Fear didn’t realize this.
• 14 days later, Fear is still living life without any symptoms of becoming ill.

All of Fear and Panic who are stocking up and hoarding the hand sanitizer, you are not as safe as you think you are. While this is not a scientific case study that I have presented, I believe, truly believe, that the first gas pump scenario is what is playing out in my community - in fact, many communities, including yours.

We are connected communities, the actions of every single one of us impact all of us.

If Fear and Panic, and especially Exploit, could realize that sharing their bottles of hand sanitizer that are now sitting in their cabinets or garage, could actually help all of us – including Fear, Panic and Exploit - that could be a huge first of many steps needed to contain the spread of this virus.

The gas pump analogy multiples quickly as you think of all the common areas that everyone interacts with daily to maintain our ability to live and survive together over the coming months as we work through this global-spreading virus.

I truly believe three things:

1. All the hand sanitizer should stay in public places: grocery stores, banks, gas stations, post offices, hospitals, restaurants, public areas/buildings where many of us frequent throughout the day.
2. All of us should be limited to one bottle of hand sanitizer that we carry with us and use in these common areas, in case a common area doesn’t have hand sanitizer available or they run out.
3. Very few of us need hand sanitizer at home, if you have warm water and soap, that is much better than hand sanitizer. Researchers and medical experts have said this numerous times.

We can continue to operate in a world that causes us to isolate and think solely about our personal needs. Or we can rise above and look out for us all – the collective.

This week it’s hand sanitizer. Who knows what it might be next week? The choice is ours.

This article was written by Amber Wendover of Thinking People Consulting. Her practice is based just outside of Seattle, Washington and her family are a part of the Woodinville, Washington community. Her children attend school within the Northshore School District that closed for a minimum of 2-months due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Her clients are being asked to work remotely. Her hometown has made world news as the “epicenter” of the virus outbreak in the USA. It has been almost impossible to purchase hand sanitizer within her community, and she sees firsthand people focused on themselves versus working together as a community.

Amber brings over 20 years of experience working with a variety of professionals in different industries across the world. She has worked with over 25,000 professionals throughout her career through 1:1 coaching and group facilitation. For more information, tips and tools for acknowledging your emotional impact please reach out to Amber directly.