Germs Are On The Rise Again: What Can Consumers Do?
The pandemic was a pretty depressing period for nearly everyone. With the constant need to wear a face mask, sanitize hands (and nearly everything else), and maintain social-distance from all friends and loved ones, many people stopped leaving the house. Although it was pretty grim, there was one significant benefit. For the most part, people didn’t get as sick. This was especially evident in the significant decrease in the number of people who reported illness due to a foodborne pathogen, such as E.coli, Salmonella, or Listeria.
While this may seem ironic, it actually makes quite a bit of sense. Due to the fact that people were so much more careful about washing their hands and following basic hygiene rules, both at home and in public places during the pandemic, the chance passing on a communicable disease or of falling ill was much more narrow.
While this could be considered great news, and actually was for a time, unfortunately this fact no longer applies. Now, in 2023, the risk of becoming ill for consumers has rebounded to what it was pre-pandemic. Since consumers have moved into the post-COVID era, the “threat of COVID”, for the most part, no longer resonates as a potential source of any danger. Accordingly, people have let their guard down. According to CNNhealth, factors that played a role in lower reported illnesses, such as “behavioral modifications, public health interventions, and changes in health care seeking and testing practices”, are no longer being employed by the average consumer.
As a result, since mid-2022, levels of reported foodborne illness are now the same as they were pre-pandemic. The CDC corroborates this, finding that illnesses associated with campylobacter, salmonella, shigella, and listeria (all leading causes of diarrhea and gastrointestinal distress) are about the same as the yearly average from 2016-2018. This is likely because people have not only stopped being conscientious about their hygiene, but have also begun to eat out more often, to travel internationally, and to visit their families and friends in closed-quarters with no masks again.
“Which is okay!”, says food poisoning lawyer Tony Coveny, adding: “It is good that people all over the globe have begun to let some sort of normalcy enter their lives again” Coveny quickly added, however, that “but this is also a stark reminder of how important personal hygiene plays in food borne illness.”
True, personal hygiene is important, but even if consumers practice good personal hygiene, it is still important to remember that there are ways they can become sick. Here, are a few tips that should be employed in the kitchen that the CDC suggests will help both families stay healthy!
- Wash hands! Before, after, and during your food prep it is important to be washing hands. Rinse for at least 20 seconds with warm water and soap.
- Separate foods! Although many don’t realize it, many people become ill with food poisoning through cross-contamination. This happens when a consumer touches a raw/uncooked product (such as chicken) or a contaminated surface, and then unknowingly touches their mouth, eyes, or nose.
- Cook food to the right temperature! If unsure about the internal temperature a product is supposed to be cooked to, look it up! There is no shame in refreshing one’s self with that information and much cheaper than winding up in an ER.
- Refrigerate food properly! It is also important to keep both the refrigerator and the freezer at cool enough temperatures. If they are not, then food could spoil, leading to harmful bacteria growth. The refrigerator needs to keep food at below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and a freezer needs to keep food at or below zero degrees Fahrenheit.
