If any lesson is to be learned from the pandemic, it is the importance of hand hygiene and Prof Cripps hoped the use of alcohol-based hand sanitiser would become the norm and not the exception post-COVID-19.
“COVID has, hopefully, changed the way in which we social distance and our improved hand hygiene and I hope that we maintain hand hygiene stations outside every building,” he said.
Brisbane’s major public hospitals have had a dream run this winter with just one admission for influenza compared to more than 900 a year ago. The remarkable and very welcome decline in flu-related admission comes after zealous coronavirus-inspired hygiene and social distancing and severe restrictions on indoor gatherings. Boasting the perfect record is the Metro North Region, which last year had 526 influenza-related admissions during winter, but none this June, July or August.