This year it's the Coronavirus - and while the name (and virus strain) are new, the medical aggression isn't.  In years past, we battled illnesses like the Bird Flu, Swine Flu, SARS, and more.  The best defense against these potential ailments is good old-fashioned hand washing;  You know - the kind most people learned when they were infants.  And while washing your hands is one of the most-effective ways you can prevent yourself from getting sick, you have to do it right.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer steps for successful (and effective) hand washing on  their website.  Included among the steps is the often-repeated fact that you need to "Scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds".  To time that 20 second interval, the common wisdom is that you need to sing the "Happy Birthday" song in its entirety while scrubbing - to time out your hand washing to the proper length.

But what if you're sick of singing "Happy Birthday" to yourself while you face the sink?  There is no particular magic to this song when it comes to proper hand washing other than it's length.

In the effort to pack your arsenal with a variety of songs that would also time out to about 20 seconds, I did some searching.  While most songs clock longer than 20 seconds in their totality, it turns out that the chorus' of many popular songs time out to around 20 seconds - which means that you could substitute these for the old-standby "Happy Birthday".

So what songs have chorus' that clock near 20 seconds?  Probably many. But here are a few suggestions from some resources that I found:

  • A-Ha - Take On Me
  • Bee Gees - Staying Alive
  • Belinda Carlisle - Heaven On Earth
  • Culture Club - Karma Chameleon
  • Five Man Electrical Band - Signs
  • Fleetwood Mac / Stevie Nicks - Landslide
  • Dolly Parton - Jolene
  • Prince - Raspberry Beret
  • Toto - Africa

To access local information from St. Louis County about COVID-19, click here.

To read about the COVID-19 testing labs that have been established in Minnesota and Wisconsin, click here.

To learn about what common household disinfectants the CDC says will kill the Coronavirus on surfaces, click here.

 

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