- I've always thought if we could somehow
just see the germs around us,
everyone will be a lot more careful
and we'd get sick way less.
Unfortunately, that's still not possible.
So I did the next best thing
by running a daylong experiment
in this third-grade classroom.
I found this powder called Glo Germ.
And just like real germs, when it's on your hands,
you can't see it.
But unlike real germs,
if you turn a black light on, it becomes visible.
But it transfers to things you've touched,
so it provides a really good way
to visualize exactly how germs spread.
So before the kids arrived, as a control,
I went around and noted any preexisting spots
in the room that fluoresced under the black light.
And then it was go time.
The kids, of course, had no idea what we were doing
and that the teacher had been secretly infected
with the glowing powder.
So she randomly shook the hands of three kids
but didn't touch any of the rest.
And so with that, they just went about their normal day.
(lighthearted music)
At break, I did choose one random student,
and he agreed to letting me put some of the powder
on his hands too.
And then two hours later at lunchtime,
I checked the results.
Remember, everything you see here started
with just the teacher
and one student having a little of that powder
on their hands.
And because my flashlight can only illuminate one spot
at a time,
I used Photoshop to better visualize our observations
of where germs were left behind,
including on the other kids.
Uh-oh! (children exclaiming)
We're pretty hot over here!
Oh, right here.
And they were actually pretty diligent
about washing their hands.
This was the desk of the kid that was infected.
And what's crazy is that germs could live
on a hard surface like this for up to nine days.
And so you can see how important it is
to disinfect the things a sick person regularly touches.
For example, this was the phone of the teacher
in the experiment.
Even if you wash your hands really often,
if you immediately pull out your phone,
a lot of those germs just go right back on your hands.
Think about when the last time was
that you cleaned your phone.
My friend Joanna at "The Wall Street Journal"
recently demonstrated you can clean your phone
with an antibacterial wipe every day for at least a year
and it doesn't affect the oleophobic coating at all.
And this hopefully gives you a better mental model
of why it's really important to wash your hands
or use hand sanitizer
after being at places like this
or this or this or this.
Cleaning commonly touched surfaces is important
because even if a virus is spread
through airborne transmission,
those tiny droplets don't stay in the air for long.
Then they land on surfaces,
waiting to be touched by our hands.
Which raises an important point.
The ultimate defense against catching a virus
is just don't touch your face.
Your eyes, nose, and mouth are like the single weak spot
on the Death Star when it comes to viruses.
That's the only way they can get in to infect you.
But as you can see here,
not touching your face is easier said than done.
(bell dinging)
And before you think,
"Yeah, well, that's just kids for you,"
this was what the teacher's face looked like
at the end of the day.
And she said she tried extra hard
to remember not to touch her face.
I found this result fascinating,
so I put the powder on my own hands for a few hours.
And I resisted the urge to touch my face so many times
that I fully expected I was going
to have a perfectly clean face and the moral high ground.
And then this is what I saw.
(Mark laughs)
What the heck?
I genuinely have no idea
when any of this came on.
(tape rewinding)
Until I reviewed the footage.
Oh, well, there you go.
On average, we touch our face 16 times an hour,
which is why washing hands is so important.
It's impossible to catch a virus directly
through your hands.
It's as futile as shooting the outer surface
of the Death Star.
The problem is, we use our hands to help the virus out
by constantly giving it a ride
to our figurative Death Star exhaust ports.
(guns shooting)
(explosion booms)
Because of this,
I ran another experiment with some of the kids after lunch.
First, I had them put some lotion on their hands
that also glows under a black light.
But then I told them I made a mistake
and used the wrong lotion.
Could you guys just go wash your hands real quick?
And do a good washing, right?
- 20 seconds. - Yeah.
Do the right washing, okay?
I just tricked you guys again,
because what I really wanted to do is test how good you are
at washing your hands.
So guess what I'm gonna do now?
- [Children] What?
- Show me your hands.
But before I show you how effective they actually were
at washing their hands,
here's what you should quickly know about viruses.
They're super tiny,
but also the most abundant biological entity on the planet.
In fact, there's over 10 million viruses
in any single drop of sea water.
And a lot of types of viruses are beneficial
to the planet's ecosystem,
and only an insanely tiny percentage affect humans at all.
And they're really simple.
Viruses are basically a shell with some DNA inside,
and they just wanna spread and duplicate.
That's their only goal.
But they're so simple that they need a host to do that.
So they reproduce by infecting their host cells
and then trick them to become factories
that just make more exact copies of the virus.
When you get sick
and then cough or sneeze or wipe your nose
and then touch a surface,
you're putting copies of this virus out to find other hosts
and just repeat the process.
And so here's what the kids' hands look like
after washing their hands.
Uh-oh, look at the backs. (children laughing)
Let me see your fingernails!
Oh, look at all those germs!
Oh, your thumb!
- Oh, my hand- - Oh, look at your wrist!
Look at your wrist!
We all sort of have a habitual way of washing our hands.
So once again,
I tried this myself using the typical quick way I do it
in my muscle memory.
Granted, that's better than nothing,
but you could see the difference compared
to when I was deliberate and took 20 seconds,
which is why it helps to do things
like sing the "Happy Birthday" song twice,
or you could do what I do
and follow Brandon Flowers' example.
♪ Jealousy, turning saints in ♪
♪ Eager eyes ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm Mr. Brightside ♪
- And then for a final experiment,
I wanted to show how dumb handshaking is.
So I infected the first kid with the powder
and then had them do a handshake chain down the line.
The fifth person here still had significant traces
on their hand,
so I put him at the first
and lined four more kids up after him,
and three of their hands glowed.
So we got trace germs from the original person
all the way down eight handshakes later.
So if you ever meet me in real life,
please don't be offended
if in lieu of a handshake I offer you a fist bump
and a selfie. (camera shutter clicks)
In conclusion, what does this all mean
with regards to the coronavirus COVID-19?
You should be concerned and take this seriously,
but regardless of what you see in the coming weeks,
there's absolutely no need to panic.
As I'm sure you've heard a bunch by now,
our goal is to flatten the curve
so that reported cases stay just under the capacity
of the healthcare system,
and social distancing is the best knob
that we can turn to affect that.
The reason this helps should hopefully make more sense
after watching this video,
especially for those who have been doubting the science
and feeling like this is an extreme reaction.
And my take here is I'm a practical optimist.
The upside is while this virus is bad,
it could be way worse.
And this gives us a chance as a global community
to get some systems and methods in place
to handle something potentially even more drastic
in the future.
Also, maybe it'll lead to changing some social norms,
like replacing handshakes with fist bumps
or when people are really sick
thinking it's okay to mingle about and go to work.
Globally, the normal flu kills anywhere
from a quarter to a half a million people a year
due in large part
to people not practicing good germ hygiene.
So if this experience makes people more socially aware
of the right precautions to take when they get sick,
that will save countless lives for years to come
long after this coronavirus is old news.
And make no mistake,
this is gonna be rough for some more than others,
but history has shown that us humans are pretty resilient.
These types of things can bring out the worst in us,
but they can also bring out the best,
most wholesome parts of us,
like these Italians practicing their social distancing
with an impromptu balcony concert.
(people singing in foreign language)
How we feel about the situation is largely dependent
on just which part we choose to focus on.
For me, that means being grateful
to the heroes in our healthcare system,
or the school lunch ladies still providing free lunch
for kids who depend on them,
or the scientists all over the world
who are working tirelessly seven days a week
to create better testing methods in a vaccine.
This is gonna be a bumpy ride for us,
but the economy will eventually bounce back,
as it always does,
and we'll be better off as a global community
for having gone through this.
Again, take this seriously,
but there's absolutely no need to panic.
We totally got this.
(stream burbling)
(upbeat music)
(Mark screams)
(snowballs thudding) (kids screaming)