H1N1 - how long does it live outside the body ?

Up to 24 hours on dry non - porous surfaces.

Up to 72 hours in select moist situations. (Per Dr. Charles Gerba - Link )

This came up in the technical sessions of our franchisee meeting this week.

What is kind of interesting is we've done a number of top to bottom decontaminations of day care centers and educational institutions with flu epidemics - at considerable cost to the customer.

But if you can stay closed for 24 hours a lot of the H1N1 is gone. If you can stay closed for 72 hours it will all be gone.

While that sounds like a non - starter, if your facility closes for the weekend at 5 PM on Friday, and reopens at 8 AM Monday, that's 63 hours - almost enough for a complete die off.

If you shut down at noon on Friday, it's almost 72 hours.

And if most of your people have the flu, might as well ?

Cool huh ?

Until the first person sneezes on Monday and recontaminates the place ?

Which is why staying home if you have H1N1 is the best thing you can do for you employer.

(Never thought I'd hear myself saying that.)

Bob