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Short Wave

One Of The Germiest Places In The Airport

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.76K Ratings

🗓️ 26 December 2019

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hint: it's not the bathroom. Niina Ikonen and Carita Savolainen-Kopra from the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare studied high-traffic areas in the Helsinki airport to identify where germs were most prevalent. Also, tips on how to stay healthy during your holiday travel. Here's their original paper in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases. Follow host Maddie Sofia on Twitter @maddie_sofia. Email the show at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

0:04.4

Maddie, Sifaya here.

0:06.8

So maybe by now, you've completed at least one leg of your holiday travel.

0:12.2

Me, I was just at the airport a couple of weeks ago, but I kind of wish I had known about

0:17.2

today's episode before that.

0:19.2

Maybe you were more comfortable at the airport if you didn't know that you didn't.

0:23.0

That's a good point, you're right, baby.

0:25.0

So let me introduce you.

0:26.7

Hello, Tannina.

0:28.2

I'm Nina Ikonen.

0:29.6

Nina and her colleague, this is Karita Savo-Lanenko.

0:33.1

Karita, our microbiologist in Helsinki, in Finnish Institute for Health and Welfour.

0:39.5

And a couple of years back, they got to thinking about how we don't have a ton of scientific

0:43.8

studies looking at how infectious disease spreads in what Nina and Karita call major hubs,

0:50.6

ports, train stations, airports, where we spent a lot of time during the holidays.

0:56.6

So they worked out a study to look at germs in their hometown airport in Helsinki.

1:01.3

And you should remember that even though we have just looked at the airports in Christmas

1:07.5

time, we have to remember that almost.

1:10.1

Ah, when we called the Christmas shopping, and there is very much frequently touch places

1:16.8

and people with coughing on.

1:18.8

Yes, it's also high time for us, then this is also high time for viruses.

1:23.4

Yes.

...

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