Explain how washing hands, compared to not washing hands, reduce infection during the COVID pandemic.

Explain how washing hands, compared to not washing hands, reduce infection during the COVID pandemic. For
nurses administering care in hospitals, how does washing hands, compared to not
washing hands, reduce infection during the COVID pandemic?
Nurses
are at the forefront in ensuring that the widely spreading virus is well
managed. Since hospitals are a hotspot for COVID infections, the individuals
responsible for handling patients firsthand are vital in ensuring that the
virus is not spread within the hospital to patients who did not come
infected. The increased risk of the
virus spreading triggered this research.
Nurses could pose a threat to patients and other staff members in the
hospital. Nurses come into contact with patients who are suspected of having
contracted the virus and those being tested for the virus before admission,
during hospitalization, or when a clearing COVID license is required. It is
important to research the effectiveness of nurses’ hand hygiene because they
could easily transfer the virus from infected people or surfaces to the
uninfected people around the hospital.
Hand
hygiene is a fundamental method of prevention and control of the virus. Nurses
are the backbone in managing the number of infections in a facility because
they are the primary caregivers, and they come into contact with the patients
more frequently than a doctor does. The risk that they may transfer an
infection to a patient while giving care is significantly high. The virus is
transmitted when a person contacts infected respiratory droplets from infected
patients or surfaces exposed to an infected patient. It is transferred to a
healthy person when they touch their nose, eyes, or mouth with contaminated
hands. The hands are, therefore, a central piece in the transfer of microorganisms
(Edmond-wilson et al., 2015), and consequently, a culture of washing hands will
significantly reduce the rate of infection within a facility. According to the Centre
for Disease Control and Prevention, handwashing remained an activity that yet
required more focus and improvement (CDC, 2019). But the activity gained more
relevance in the COVID pandemic because of its effectiveness (Alzyood, 2020). A
statement from them emphasizes that during screening for symptoms during
admission, the practitioners should maintain hand hygiene as a precaution in
preventing Hospital-acquired infections (CDC, 2020).
With
the onset of the pandemic, hospitals have increased their adherence to hand
hygiene. A case study on the impact of COVID on hand hygiene in hospitals
reveals that there was a ten percent increase in hygiene practices during the
pandemic. The article mentions that the upward shift in handwashing practices
improved the control of the virus. It could be an important phase for changing
the behavioral patterns around handwashing (Moore et al., 2021). The article mentions that the upward shift in
the handwashing activities was stimulated by the uprising importance of
controlling the virus (Moore et al., 2021).
Another reason was that the virus posed a very high risk to in-house
patients and staff members. The nurses recognized the method as viable, and
they are continuing to adopt it so that they could protect themselves, their
family members, the patients, and the medical fraternity. In a bid to protect
themselves, they embrace this evidence-based approach to help prevent and
control the spread of the disease. Research from leading regulatory bodies like
WHO and intellectuals prove that hand hygiene is key in reducing the spread of
the virus. It is therefore prudent that practicing nurses engrave the
handwashing culture to themselves and those around them. Eventually, the virus will
be more contained in medical vicinities.
References
Alzyood, M., Jackson, D.,
Aveyard, H., & Brooke, J. (2020). COVID-19 reinforces the importance of handwashing. Journal of
clinical nursing, 29(15-16), 2760–2761. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15313
Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (2019). Hand hygiene in healthcare settings.
Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/handhygiene/index.html
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(2020, February 11). Healthcare Workers
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/infection-control-recommendations.html
Edmonds‐Wilson,
S. L. , Nurinova, N. I. , Zapka, C. A. , Fierer, N. , & Wilson, M. (2015). Review
of human hand microbiome research.
Journal of Dermatological Science, 80, 3– 12.
10.1016/j.jdermsci.2015.07.006
Moore, L. D., Robbins,
G., Quinn, J., & Arbogast, J. W. (2021). The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on hand hygiene performance
in hospitals. American journal of infection control,
49(1), 30–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2020.08.021
Sources are sufficient, and all are
scholarly, current (within the last 10
years), and credible. No more than
5% of the paper’s total word count
consists of direct quotes, and all
work not cited is original.

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