If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or need help, call or text 988.
Norovirus is unbelievably contagious. People shed billions of particles in their vomit and stool when they’re sick, but it only takes 18 particles to infect someone else. Managers should speak to their teams, acknowledge that noro is going around, and emphasize the importance of staying home if you have GI symptoms -including if any household members have noro-like symptoms. Many employees don’t know that they should stay home for 3 days if their roommate or child is sick with norovirus, so that’s a great way to move the needle on breaking the cycle of illness when noro is spreading in your community. Explain that people are actually still contagious even after they feel better, so if you have noro-like symptoms, you need to stay home for a full two days after symptoms stop to make sure you’re not getting coworkers and guests sick. Noro can spread through food, so food handlers should be extra cautious. Even if employees feel fine and no one at home is sick, your team should step up their hand-washing while it’s going around the community.
Source: CDC
Any thunder you hear means there is lightning nearby that’s close enough to strike you, too. About 300 people per year are struck by lightning in the U.S. Most survive, but 10%, or about 30 people per year, die and many more have permanent disabilities, so the consequences are serious. Florida in particular is considered the “lighting capital” of the U.S., with more than 2,000 lightning injuries over the past 50 years. It’s best practice to pull any employees indoors when you hear thunder or see lightning, and to wait 30 minutes after the last thunder is heard before returning outdoors. This is key - most lightning strikes happen either when people are caught unexpectedly in a storm or when they return outside too soon, so be sure to wait the full half hour before sending employees back outside.
We’ve been really loving YLE’s series on what went wrong with public health communication about vaccines during the pandemic. This final installment is great and hard reading, and it’s so important, especially because we (both the ZHH team and you, an employer) are trusted messengers whose role in public health communication can’t be understated: