Assume your productivity is halved (Mine is far worse, since ~90% of the value of my time is when I’m operating at peak, which I can’t do at all when sick.)
So handwashing would save an average of 0.2*8.5*3*0.5=2.55 days of productivity.
Cost:
30 seconds per handwashing * 15 times per day * 365 days / 18 waking hours per day = 2.5 days of time.
So as long as you’re completely neutral to the externality costs like making other people sick, don’t mind the physical unpleasantness of getting sick, and there’s no scary superbug going around, this seems like, well, a wash.
If you have kids, you’ll get sick more, and washing has correspondingly higher benefits. And if you come into contact with the elderly, very young, or the otherwise sick, the externality costs are far higher, and you’re a jerk for not doing this.
Bottom line: yes, it’s only marginally beneficial. But if 2019-NCoV is at all worrying, it likely tips the balance. Now instead of arguing about the exact numbers here, i.e. justifying your inaction by explaining to the world why the costs are higher and the benefits are lower, go wash your hands.
I notice that you only compare time spent hand washing to time spent debilitated by respiratory illness, but hand washing also reduces likelihood of other ailments, eg gastric infections due to fecal or other bacterial contamination, and intestinal parasites (especially threadworm if you have kids...).
Even without specific numbers on the time that these might rob you of, hat would seem to push the balance in favour of hand washing.
Apart from anything else, being ill or having a high parasite load is just plain unpleasant, and long periods of illness (even if few and far between) are more damaging to sense of wellbeing than short periods spent on a menial task multiple times a day.
We should take into account the welfare of others, too. Besides protecting me from disease, washing my hands prevents me from transmitting it to someone else. It’s pretty much analogous to vaccines.
Do they say which conditions are being compared? Is it no handwashing at all vs 30 seconds 15 times per day, or something else? (I would look myself, but I can’t find the quote with cmd-f.)
I’d guess that washing your hands has some diminishing marginal returns, so if washing your hands for 30 seconds 15 times a day is approximately as good as not washing your hands at all, you can probably do better than both by being somewhere in the middle (e.g. washing your hands for 20 seconds at the 10 points during the day when they’re most dirty).
I’d guess that washing your hands has some diminishing marginal returns, so if washing your hands for 30 seconds 15 times a day is approximately as good as not washing your hands at all, you can probably do better than both by being somewhere in the middle (e.g. washing your hands for 20 seconds at the 10 points during the day when they’re most dirty).
My personal guess would be that if you want to minimise the time cost of hand washing your best bet would be to really drill in (a) always washing your hands before touching food, and (b) not touching your face. If you can be very confident in those two things you can probably let up on the general hand hygiene slightly. I was going to say that this applies if you don’t care that much about externalities, but to be honest if you always wash your hands before touching communal food you’d already be doing much better than most people.
You mean this one? Yeah, that does suggest that there are increasing marginal returns to time spent per hand-washing session, at the typical level of effort.
Good post. I would actually argue that the cost of n many 30 second activities is much lower than the cost of one block of 30n seconds, because taking small breaks in between work isn’t zero value.
This seems like an easy thing to do a rough cut on.
Benefit:
″ Adults average about 2 to 4 colds a year” - https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/common_cold_overview
″ People usually recover in seven to ten days” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold
Assume your productivity is halved (Mine is far worse, since ~90% of the value of my time is when I’m operating at peak, which I can’t do at all when sick.)
“Handwashing can prevent 21% of respiratory sicknesses”—https://globalhandwashing.org/about-handwashing/why-handwashing/health/
So handwashing would save an average of 0.2*8.5*3*0.5=2.55 days of productivity.
Cost:
30 seconds per handwashing * 15 times per day * 365 days / 18 waking hours per day = 2.5 days of time.
So as long as you’re completely neutral to the externality costs like making other people sick, don’t mind the physical unpleasantness of getting sick, and there’s no scary superbug going around, this seems like, well, a wash.
If you have kids, you’ll get sick more, and washing has correspondingly higher benefits. And if you come into contact with the elderly, very young, or the otherwise sick, the externality costs are far higher, and you’re a jerk for not doing this.
Bottom line: yes, it’s only marginally beneficial. But if 2019-NCoV is at all worrying, it likely tips the balance. Now instead of arguing about the exact numbers here, i.e. justifying your inaction by explaining to the world why the costs are higher and the benefits are lower, go wash your hands.
I notice that you only compare time spent hand washing to time spent debilitated by respiratory illness, but hand washing also reduces likelihood of other ailments, eg gastric infections due to fecal or other bacterial contamination, and intestinal parasites (especially threadworm if you have kids...).
Even without specific numbers on the time that these might rob you of, hat would seem to push the balance in favour of hand washing.
Apart from anything else, being ill or having a high parasite load is just plain unpleasant, and long periods of illness (even if few and far between) are more damaging to sense of wellbeing than short periods spent on a menial task multiple times a day.
We should take into account the welfare of others, too. Besides protecting me from disease, washing my hands prevents me from transmitting it to someone else. It’s pretty much analogous to vaccines.
Yes, it was a quick and in some ways worst case / pessimistic analysis.
Cool to see that they’re in the same ballpark.
Do they say which conditions are being compared? Is it no handwashing at all vs 30 seconds 15 times per day, or something else? (I would look myself, but I can’t find the quote with cmd-f.)
I’d guess that washing your hands has some diminishing marginal returns, so if washing your hands for 30 seconds 15 times a day is approximately as good as not washing your hands at all, you can probably do better than both by being somewhere in the middle (e.g. washing your hands for 20 seconds at the 10 points during the day when they’re most dirty).
My personal guess would be that if you want to minimise the time cost of hand washing your best bet would be to really drill in (a) always washing your hands before touching food, and (b) not touching your face. If you can be very confident in those two things you can probably let up on the general hand hygiene slightly. I was going to say that this applies if you don’t care that much about externalities, but to be honest if you always wash your hands before touching communal food you’d already be doing much better than most people.
(ETA: Also see David’s other comment below)
You mean this one? Yeah, that does suggest that there are increasing marginal returns to time spent per hand-washing session, at the typical level of effort.
Good post. I would actually argue that the cost of n many 30 second activities is much lower than the cost of one block of 30n seconds, because taking small breaks in between work isn’t zero value.