Definitive Proof Hand Sanitizer Is Useless

You are going to get sick. You might as well just give in.

Most hand sanitizers and disinfecting wipes claim to kill 99% of germs. Which sounds great. Until you start to think about it. A quick look at your average day only proves it's a miracle we aren't all dead of the Black Plague.

Escalator Handrail: 3,000,000 Germs

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After dousing yourself in hand sanitizer, you're still walking away with 30,000 germs on your hands. But at least you got to the office.

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Keyboard: 288,000 Germs

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Despite a quick aerosol spray, your morning LolCat perusal just netted you another 2,880 possible flu viruses.

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Office Desk: 10,000,000 Germs

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Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things since 1% of the germs crawling all over your desk numbers around 100,000.

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Cell Phone: 500,000 Germs

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Your desk is a cesspit of bacteria, so why not set up a lunch date and get out of the office for a while? After all, there are only 5,000 potential E. coli viruses on your palm after you make the call and slather sanitizer on your hands.

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Office Phone: 1,000,000 Germs

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Which is better than the 10,000 bacteria the cleaning crew's sanitizing wipe left behind for the next conference call administrator.

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Water Cooler Spigot: 3,000,000 Germs

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If you decided to grab a drink to refresh yourself before heading out to lunch, you just upped your flu-roulette wheel chances to the tune of 30,000. Assuming you wiped the spigot down beforehand. You did wipe it down, right?

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Restaurant Menu: 185,000 Germs

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Finally! You made it lunch. This menu is probably the least disgusting thing you've touched today and you still might end up with 1,850 cold and flu viruses. Dammit!

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Public Faucet: 1,145,000 Germs

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You know what, let's just wash our hands and not touch anything for the rest of the day. Including the faucet, lest we end up with 11,450 sanitization-resistant bacteria on our hands.

WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THIS?

People who go out in public sick. After all...

Coughing: 200,000 Germs

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A single cough can emit a lot of cold and flu viruses. Even with proper precaution, 1% of that is 2,000 ways to get sick.

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Sneezing: 1,000,000,000 Germs

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The worst offender. One sneeze from an infected person carries over 1 billion germs. Even if you snorted hand sanitizer, you're still getting upwards of 10 million visitors, whether you like it or not.

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