sickness going arround championship

[liviamarrs]

One of our students developed strep throat while we were there. After a 14 hour long bus ride, many other students and mentors are now suffering from the same thing.
I remember at the Virginia Regional a few years back, a 24 hour flu swept through the teams. The result was a lot of sick kids laying everywhere and a really disgusting stadium.
I see how it's really easy for something to get transmitted when so many people are in the same area, shaking hands, hugging, not washing hands before eating food, etc.

[sanddrag]

On this note, I've always been a bit grossed out by doing the whole handshake thing before finals, and especially high-fiving the judges for awards, especially if you have one of the last awards. I'm not sure what you would do to replace that though.

[Oblarg]

I seem to have contracted a cold towards the end of Championships, but it's clearing up now. Not much worse than a sore throat and some coughing.

I did not eat any of the stadium food, because it's horrendously overpriced and disgusting.

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Don't go out of your way to do this. Unless you're actually vitamin-deficient or going hungry (which you probably aren't), it won't have any special benefits.

Thank you for actually knowing what you're talking about. The whole "vitamin C for stopping illness" business is depressingly divorced from reality.

On the other hand, there does appear to be reasonably good experimental evidence for zinc reducing cold duration, though they've got no idea what the mechanism of action is.

[jspatz1]

We had at least 3 students sick and out of school on Tuesday.

[ElvisMom]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

On this note, I've always been a bit grossed out by doing the whole handshake thing before finals, and especially high-fiving the judges for awards, especially if you have one of the last awards. I'm not sure what you would do to replace that though.

I believe one of our off-season projects will be installing a large bottle of hand sanitizer on the robot cart to make a member of our drive team a little more comfortable in that situation.

[MasterCommander]

I've seen some pictures floating around on the /r/frc of raw chicken that some of the vendors were selling at the venue. That could be a culprit, but more likely it's just because of the concentration of students from around the world. Different people who've been exposed to different illnesses all hanging around very close for 5 days will get people sick.

[dag0620]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

On this note, I've always been a bit grossed out by doing the whole handshake thing before finals, and especially high-fiving the judges for awards, especially if you have one of the last awards. I'm not sure what you would do to replace that though.

I was on a planning committee this year for a District Event, and we ended up in the high five line with the judges. While I love the concept, and for the kids it's worth it and I'd do it anytime, I still was a little grossed out by the amount of hands we high fived. Luckily our Judge Assistant was AMAZING, and came down the line a few times throughout ceremonies with a big bottle of hand sanatizer.

Moral of the story, make sure to be washing your hands constantly, and have hand sanatizer, especially on Friday and Saturday night.

[protoserge]

Join Team HAZMAT next year. Apply within.

[Wayne Doenges]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

On the other hand, there does appear to be reasonably good experimental evidence for zinc reducing cold duration, though they've got no idea what the mechanism of action is.

Without medication it takes about 7 days to get over a cold. With medication it takes about a week

[IndySam]

When it comes to most viruses hand sanitizer does little more than move them around your hands.

The only thing that effectively gets rid of them is simple soap and water.

It's always a good rule around large groups in a confined space to always keep your hands away from your face as much as you can and never put anything in your mouth unless you wash your hands first.

[FrankJ]

I had the fish.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

I had the fish.

And? Did you get sick?

Do we need to find someone to pilot the plane who didn't have fish?

[Tungrus]

Fish has runny nose too?

[ElvisMom]

Originally Posted by IndySam

When it comes to most viruses hand sanitizer does little more than move them around your hands.

I fully own that hand sanitizer is not doing anything other than making me feel cleaner (but I always wonder why they have dispensers in hospital rooms and doctor's offices these days).

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by IndySam

When it comes to most viruses hand sanitizer does little more than move them around your hands.

Originally Posted by ElvisMom

I fully own that hand sanitizer is not doing anything other than making me feel cleaner (but I always wonder why they have dispensers in hospital rooms and doctor's offices these days).

It's a little more nuanced than that, because there are different kinds of hand sanitizer. Presumably the medical professionals have chosen one that works against the pathogens they're trying to avoid.


The most common kinds have some sort of alcohol in them (ethanol, isopropanol, etc.). In sufficient concentration (like 60%), it kills bacteria reliably and will destroy common respiratory viruses (because these alcohols dissolve the lipid coatings of those viruses).

Unfortunately, you can apparently label a product with 2% ethanol as hand sanitizer.¹ Chemically, that's a lot like diluting a glass of light beer with water, and then washing with it. One might imagine that this isn't especially effective.

Here's some further reading on the topic, including the recommendation to use ethanol or isopropanol hand sanitizers with a concentration of at least 60%.


Stuff like norovirus is a little more resistant, but might respond to some of the other active chemicals—like benzalkonium chloride or iodine—in other formulations of hand sanitizer. (Alternatively, you can destroy norovirus with the hypochlorite in chlorine bleach, diluted in water.)

¹ IFI, you need to dump your branded hand sanitizer vendor.