New Hand-Washing Technique Revealed in Video by Meteorologist

As the circumstances around coronavirus continue to change, with stores changing their hours, bars and restaurants closed down and people engage in self-quarantine, one piece of advice has remained consistent: wash your hands. In order to help slow the spread, it’s been advised for weeks that washing one’s hands for 20 seconds with soapy water will kill coronavirus. Now, KMEG meteorologist Katie Nickolaou has breathed new life into that 20-second handwashing window.

“I don’t like to do something unless it’s a challenge, and ‘Happy Birthday’ just isn’t a challenge,” Nickolaou says in the clip. “Let’s try mixing this up again, you ready,” she continues. “You gotta get everything ready,” she says again, before launching into a speed-recitation of Animaniacs‘ ode to geography, “Yakko’s Song.” She starts with the United States, then Mexico, Canada and Peru before she really gets going.

Nickolaou’s video is one of the newest social media posts to encourage people to take part in thorough, effective handwashing. Ariana Grande, Hugh Jackman and Arnold Schwarzenegger have all posted their own videos to demonstrate their own techniques. Schwarzenegger even had his dog on-hand for his, which was significantly less bizarre than his social distancing video. That one included a mule and a miniature horse.

There have been a dramatic uptick in reported cases of coronavirus, according to The CDC, with 33,404 in the U.S. and 400 confirmed deaths as of Monday. However, there has been some good news, as researchers in the U.K. have possibly correlated a lack of sense of smell or taste as a possible symptom of the virus, which has been asymptomatic in several cases thus far.

Professor Claire Hopkins, president of the British Rhinological Society, held a test calling upon adults who had suffered from anosmia, which is diminished smell and taste. The group was told to go into self-isolation for seven days to slow down the spread.

Hopkins hopes that this study, and others like it, could “contribute to slowing transmission and save lives,” according to The New York Times. In the meantime, The World Health Organization has several tips on its website that individuals can do to help slow the spread of coronavirus.