With a Presidential Inauguration taking place in the midst of a global pandemic, we have the opportunity to look at how past president's have dealt with pathogen outbreaks. Pre-antibiotic presidents faced illnesses in their personal lives alongside their fellow Americans, often with tragic results. Once vaccines were available, presidents often took leading roles to promote their use, both through public statements and through policy. But it was the very first president who actually took first-hand steps to stop an epidemic, steps that may have allowed for the very birth of our nation.

A study demonstrated that regular soap has the same impact as antibacterial soap at killing bacterial during hand washing. Today we'll explore this study, the chemical being evaluated, and what these results mean to the debate about whether or not antibacterial soaps are helpful.

The infection control landscape is difficult to navigate without an understanding of the key terms used by experts in the field. Some of these terms have found their way into every-day language, but often without the technical nuances that can make a big difference in a health care setting. Today we will start to demystify the terminology of infection control, starting with four "anti" terms.

There's no more chilling words in a killer virus action movie than "IT'S MUTATED!" Visions of a virus gone berserk and leaving chaos (or zombies) in its wake are conjured just by hearing that phrase. So it's no surprise that when news of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, emerging in the UK and elsewhere that people began to panic. In this post, we'll explain why it's actually not time to panic, and how virus mutations are anticipated and expected by scientists working to end the pandemic.