[patroclo]

Wash your hands
This is the cold and flu season, so please be
considerate of your fellow players by washing
your hands frequently and making use of the hand
sanitizers provided for you in the playing area.
There are 15 of them. Note, however, that health
officials emphasize such devices are no substitute for
thorough hand washing with soap and warm water

Be Scent-sitive!
Some people have an extreme sensitivity to
fragrances (colognes or perfumes). Many ACBL
clubs, units and districts have adopted policies that
prohibit players from wearing fragrances. The
ACBL has not issued an official policy on the
matter, preferring instead to appeal to the goodwill of
its members to refrain from using fragrances.
Because duplicate bridge requires players to be
in close proximity to each other, individuals who
suffer from fragrance-related reactions cannot avoid
those who are wearing them. Among the commonly
reported symptoms are intense headaches (indeed,
fragrances can frequently be a trigger for migraine
sufferers) or breathing-related problems. For these
individuals, the issue is much more serious than
simply disliking a particular smell — it’s a real health
problem.
The ACBL asks everyone to give this issue the
consideration it deserves. Please, if you’re going to
play in a club or a tournament, don’t wear cologne,
perfume or scented lotions.


From Danger is my middle name series

[mycroft]

I'm not sure what the intended purpose of this post (especially the last line) is, but:

• I can't imagine 60+ bridge players have better immune systems than professional athletes.
  
• One of the players in my unit is going blind because of perfumes and cigarette smoke - it causes the blood vessels in her retinas to pop. Which is a little better than me - I'm just going to get a permanent cough (I've managed to go 15 years past my mother and my aunt through careful living - which includes being less polite than the ACBL to idiots who think that their "smelling good" is more important than my health).

[Vampyr]

mycroft, on 2014-April-04, 11:03, said:

I'm not sure what the intended purpose of this post (especially the last line) is, but:

I think it is just a public health bulletin. I was wondering if it should have been on the Water Cooler, even if it did appear in a bridge daily bulletin.

Quote

[*]One of the players in my unit is going blind because of perfumes and cigarette smoke - it causes the blood vessels in her retinas to pop. Which is a little better than me - I'm just going to get a permanent cough (I've managed to go 15 years past my mother and my aunt through careful living - which includes being less polite than the ACBL to idiots who think that their "smelling good" is more important than my health).

Would the clubs lose a lot of custom if they banned cigarette smoking?

[jillybean]

Vampyr, on 2014-April-04, 19:00, said:

Would the clubs lose a lot of custom if they banned cigarette smoking?

Do any clubs permit smoking?

[Vampyr]

jillybean, on 2014-April-04, 19:16, said:

Do any clubs permit smoking?

Mycroft's post above makes it very clear that some do.

[FM75]

Sheesh! Get a life!

Flu (influenza) is normally transmitted via aerosols - sneezing and coughing as the non-technical description (viruses or bacteria reach you lungs or mucous membranes in your nose). There are very few mechanisms for transmission of disease. Washing your hands has nothing to do with flu.

How does washing hands work? Well if you are a surgeon, it helps to avoid transferring viruses or bacteria into a patient. The same holds for dentists and nurses, except they all use antiseptic gloves these days anyway.

So what does washing your hands do for you? It helps prevent transferring germs to someone else that shakes hands with you. But just shaking hands is no big deal. So long as that person does not reasonably soon, thereafter, pick his nose, rub his eyes, or in some other way touch mucous membranes, open wounds, or body parts equivalent, that person is safe.

When should you wash your hands? If you are (excessively) worried about "germs", wash your hands before sucking your thumb, sticking your hands in your mouth, picking your nose, or rubbing your eyes or other orifices that we don't need to mention.

[Antrax]

FM75, when I read about the subject I was surprised to see just how much disease is passed via door handles and the like. It's pretty common for someone to stifle a sneeze with their hands, then infect a door handle and voila. That's why people do that idiotic thing where they sneeze into their elbow.
Seriously, Google about it a bit, you might turn into a convert like I did. I thought it was all hooey and normal soap isn't even antiseptic yadda yadda and I completely turned my thinking around.

[FM75]

Antrax, on 2014-April-04, 22:48, said:

FM75, when I read about the subject I was surprised to see just how much disease is passed via door handles and the like. It's pretty common for someone to stifle a sneeze with their hands, then infect a door handle and voila. That's why people do that idiotic thing where they sneeze into their elbow.
Seriously, Google about it a bit, you might turn into a convert like I did. I thought it was all hooey and normal soap isn't even antiseptic yadda yadda and I completely turned my thinking around.

Google - hoogle
Talking science here, not just popular search answers.

Search "modes of infectious disease transmission"
Then you have to look deeper.

If you blindly "google' Giardiasis, you will likely figure that it is important to carry a filter with you when camping. In truth, you have been sold a bill of goods by a vendor selling water filters. You are way more likely to suffer from the disease from a baby pool than natural water sources, AND, the disease is rarely accurately diagnosed, which can only be done by tracing the infection back to its source.


If you touch an "infected door handle", you have to pick your nose, etc. afterwards to become infected yourself. So clean your hands before picking your nose, or sucking your thumb, or sticking your fingers or thumb in other "body cavities"!

[mycroft]

Vampyr, on 2014-April-04, 19:29, said:

Mycroft's post above makes it very clear that some do.

No, no clubs allow smoking at the table any more (at least that I know about).

However, the thing about cigarette smoke and perfume is that they hang around to be smelt by everyone else around you (for perfume, that is the intent; cigarettes it's just an unwelcome distraction). In particular with cigarettes, if you smoke them quickly (as, say, if you only have two minutes between rounds to get out, have your smoke and get back in and to the table. Sure and I don't know where I got that example from), they spray more residue all over everything, and the smoker is worse when they get to the table than if they had had enough time.

Having said that, with the Conference Centre in Dallas locking their doors at 1700, so that the "proper" method of entry was cross the street, go into the middle of the hotel, go up the elevator, come back halfway, cross the street again in the overpass, and go down the escalator (taking up most of that 5-minute break), instead of smokers doing that, they just held the door open and smoked into it. With the playing area 15 feet and one dropcurtain (which also tended to get opened by the smokers to gain those extra precious seconds from going around it) away. We had to be moved once because the smoke just hanging around at our table from the people "outside" was affecting both of us.