Comment on Bacteria may kill us entirely, but we will never kill bacteria entirely
medem@lemmy.wtf 5 days ago
Hospitals are dangerous for children, the elderly and immuno-compromised patients not because of risk of contagion, but because the bacteria that have survived the aggressive chemicals hospital surfaces are cleaned with are the strongest ones (shamelessly plagiarised from my 8th-grade chemistry teacher).
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 4 days ago
Well, it’s a quarter right.
The bacteria in hospitals generally aren’t surviving cleaning products, most simply can not survive bleach or whatever anymore than you could survive having your skin liquidated.
They are however often antibiotic resistant both because those tend to be what needs hospitalization in the first place and the resistance developing from treatments.
Then the real problem happens:
It is functionally impossible to clean everything that needs to be cleaned in a hospital room to prevent someone immunocompromised, aka basically all sick and injured people, from being at risk of catching it.
Look at all the books and crannies involved on a hospital bed alone and think about actually needs to happen to clean it.
Do you think that happens every time?
The curve of every door handle for every patient for every visitor?
All the tubing, wiring, and electrical panels on the various monitoring systems?