Hygiene and COVID – You wash your hands but do you wash your nose? | ABC4 Utah

(DOUG JESSOP’S JESSOP’S JOURNAL – ABC4 NEWS – SALT LAKE CITY, UT) Hygiene is the process and concept of cleaning. You wash your clothes and you wash your hands. Have you thought about washing your nose?

Nathan Jones is the president and founder of a nasal hygiene company called XLEAR. He told me about the Pioneer of handwashing, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis.

“When people go to the doctors now it’s common practice that they are either changing their gloves or washing their hands between patients. That really didn’t become common practice until the late 1990’s. 1990’s? Semmelweis wrote his first paper about washing your hands between sick patients back in 1848. It was 150 years later when it was accepted and became a standard of care in the US. I t was 1998. and that was driven by the HIV and HEP C crisis.”

The surge in COVID has triggered a number of studies to be done.

“The first one that really got us thinking was the one in the New England Journal of Medicine which was in March of 2020, right in the beginning. Since right in the beginning they’ve known that 90 percent of the viral load of the Sars/COVID2 is located in the nose and upper airway.”

If 90 percent of the viral load is in the nose, what can you do to reduce the viral load?

According to Nathan Jones, there’s a lot of things. He told me; “There have been papers using Iodine. There are papers using nitrous oxide. There’s been papers published using nebulized alcohol. there’s a bunch of them. We’ve had papers using our product to reduce the viral load and we’ve shown that. There are studies at the university of Tennessee that were actually published that show xylitol blocks the ability of the SARS/COVID2 virus to adhere to the tissue.”

Is Xlear the answer to the common cold? No. I asked Jones what it does in plain language; “XLEAR is not a drug. It is a hygiene tool. It doesn’t kill. It washes away. It’s what it does. It helps thin out your mucus. Clean it out so the cilia can move faster. It helps speed up the mucous clearance cycle. Trapping more bacteria, viruses, pollen, dander, irritants, dust.”

If you ask me, that sounds like a pretty good thing.

I strongly feel that “everyone has a story” and that “stories have power”. Chances are that if you are going through something, that someone else probably has as well. The shared experiences we humans have can help each other. That my friend makes the point that stories “help us understand each other.”

You don’t have to agree with everyone, but in my opinion, if people would take more time getting to knowing more about others and where they are coming from, we just might find out that we have more similarities than differences.

Jessop’s Journal is something special when it comes to broadcast news. I have the honor of being able to do longer in-depth interviews that you don’t normally see with people from all walks of life.

A big shout out goes to my collaborator, Ed Wilets , who does a great job as my videographer/editor for all my stories. I invite you to watch each episode of Jessop’s Journal at www.ABC4.com/Journal and share these stories with your friends and neighbors. Your feedback is always welcome.

You can also see my positive business profiles called “Utah Success Stories” every Sunday in the ABC4 News at 10 p.m. or online at www.ABC4.com/Success

Stories have power. They help us understand each other. With another entry into Jessop ‘s Journal, I’m Doug Jessop www.dougjessop.com , ABC4 News.

Other episodes of Jessop’s Journal can be seen at www.ABC4.com/Journal and are made possible by the generous support of Rustico, Tailor Cooperative, JW Custom Hats, Ogden’s Own Distillery and XLEAR.

Doug Jessop