Washing your hands between six and ten times a day reduces the risk of catching infections like coronavirus, new research has found.
A study, published in Wellcome Open Research, found that regular handwashing reduced the risk of catching Covid-19 by 36 per cent compared with washing between zero and five times a day.
Washing more than ten times a day here offered no significant additional protection, the researchers concluded.
The research looked at data from 2006 to 2009 on flu viruses which are structurally very similar to the deadly coronavirus circulating now.
“Given that Covid-19 appears to demonstrate similar transmission mechanisms to seasonal coronaviruses, these findings support clear public health messaging around the protective effects of handwashing during the pandemic,” said the study’s co-author, Sarah Beale from University College London’s (UCL) Institute of Health Informatics.
“It’s important to highlight that frequency of handwashing is only one aspect of hand hygiene,” she added.
“We also know that both longer duration of handwashing and the context of handwashing e.g. upon returning home or before eating – have been associated with lower overall risk of influenza or influenza-like-illness.
“Good hand hygiene should be practised at all times regardless of whether you show symptoms or not.
“This will help protect yourself and prevent unwittingly spreading the virus to others around you.”
For the study, 1,633 participants provided baseline estimates of hand hygiene behaviour and coronavirus infections were identified from nasal swabs. Almost 80 per cent of them were aged over 16.
At the start of each season, participants were asked to estimate how many times they had washed their hands the previous day.
Frequency of daily handwashing was subsequently categorised as low, zero to five times daily, moderate, six to 10 times daily, or high, more than 10 times daily.
Ellen Fragaszy, of UCL’s Institute of Health Informatics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Something as simple as washing our hands regularly can help us to keep the infection rate low and reduce transmissions.”
The authors wrote: “This is the first empirical evidence that regular handwashing can reduce personal risk of acquiring seasonal coronavirus infection.
“These findings support clear public health messaging around the protective effects of hand washing in the context of the current Covid-19 pandemic.”
The research was funded by The Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust.
