BALTIMORE (WMAR) — Time and time again, we’ve heard hand washing is key to stopping the spread of the virus. As businesses start opening back up, one Federal Hill shop owner is trying to make it more accessible to wash up outdoors.
"It’s a very inexpensive way to essentially let people wash their hands almost anywhere," said Will Fagg.
Fagg owns Tiny Brick Oven Pizza and Gelato. He's building portable hand washing stations to deploy across the area.
He built his first portable sink a decade, to use while making pizza at festivals, but he started back up when the pandemic hit, so he could have one for his shop on Light St.
"I felt like people needed a way to wash their hands when they come into the shop. The bathroom is closed," said Fagg.
It's pretty bare bones, powered by a foot pump. The bottom bucket has clean water and the top is for dirty water. Supplied for one cost about $30 and you can build one in less than an hour.
As more things start to reopen, he wants to get this resource out into the community.
"We’ve deployed these sinks to homeless encampments or I put them out where some day laborers were at Home Depot and then you just give everybody their own bar of soap," said Fagg.
Another idea is to integrate it into security checkpoints at public buildings.
"You could just say, 'We are measuring your temperature. We’re making sure you’re wearing a mask and we’re making sure you’re washing your hands before entering the facility'," said Fagg.
As a former Infection Control Petty Officer at Navy Hospital, he also thinks they could be used as a teaching aid.
"Part of what I learned from working in the operating room is that not everyone knows how to wash their hands and lately they’ve been really championing the idea that you have to wash your hands for 20 seconds," said Fagg. "You could set up 10 or 20 of them in a row and just have public health nurses literally teaching people how to wash their hands."
He wants them wherever they are needed. The ultimate goal is to help break the chain of transmission.
"If you’ve touched a doorknob that maybe has the virus on it and then you’re going around touching a bunch of other objects, now those have all been contaminated. If anywhere in that chain, you’re able to wash your hands for 20 seconds, they know that the soap kills or deactivates the virus, essentially that means that anything you’ve touched after that would not be contaminated," said Fagg.
If you know of a place you’d like to see one of these hand washing stations or you’d like a tutorial to make one yourself, contact him at Willfagg@gmail.com.
