Sick Person’s Germs Spread To Half Of Commonly Touched Office Surfaces, Study Finds

If you thought you could avoid your sick coworkers' germs by just covering your nose and mouth when they sneeze, we have some bad news to deliver -- you probably won't be able to escape their germs because they get EVERYWHERE.

New yet-to-be-published research conducted by scientists at the University of Arizona shows that half of the most commonly touched surfaces in the office (like the coffee pot handle, tabletops, doorknobs and phones) can become infected with a sick person's germs -- all by lunchtime.

The study, conducted by public health professor Kelly Reynolds and germ expert Charles Gerba, involved having 80 people go about their regular work-day business in an office at the university. Most of the study participants received droplets of water on their hands at the beginning of the day, but one of the participants got droplets of fake viruses, which acted like the cold, flu and stomach flu viruses, that researchers were able to test for in the office environment later on.