The Worst Place to Pick Up a Cold Virus at Work and How to Prevent It

It's that time of the year again when cold and flu viruses hit. Viruses spread like wildfire in an average office, getting from people’s hands onto the communal coffeepot within hours and spreading from doors to desks almost instantly, an expert reported Monday, according to an article in Today.com. It only takes two to four hours for a virus to get off, say, a coffee pot handle and onto a desk.

“The hand was really quicker than the sneeze in the spread of disease,” Charles Gerba of the University of Arizona in Tucson told a meeting of infectious disease experts. The office hot spot was the break room, where everyone touches the coffeepot and microwave, his team found.